


Luisa and The Fox

by aparticularbandit



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/F, Fairy Tale Style, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2019-11-04 05:31:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17892410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aparticularbandit/pseuds/aparticularbandit
Summary: Once upon a time, there lived a little girl named Luisa.  She lived in a big house with her mother and father, and for the first few years of her life, everything seemed happy.  Her mother and father both loved her, and she loved them, and they loved each other.Then one day, her mother disappeared....





	1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time, there lived a little girl named Luisa.  She lived in a big house with her mother and father, and for the first few years of her life, everything seemed happy.  Her mother and father both loved her, and she loved them, and they loved each other.

Then one day, her mother disappeared.  She and her father looked everywhere for her, and while they were looking, Luisa came across a little fox with bright blue eyes waiting for her beneath a rose bush.  She didn’t move, because foxes were scary, and the fox sat, watching her, its tail wrapped around its body, flicking once or twice.  After a few moments where neither of them moved, her father gave a loud shout, and the fox’s head swiveled towards the sound.  Luisa took its distraction to run away, back to her father.

When she made it to him, Luisa found her father standing next to her mother’s dead body.  There was a hole dug into the middle of her chest and teeth marks around the ventricles where her heart once was.  Her eyes were frozen open, her mouth loud in a silent scream.  Luisa buried her head in her father’s chest, and when he lifted her, she leaned her head on his shoulder, crying.  Through her tears, she saw the fox standing behind them, still watching.

A few months passed and a woman in the shape of another mother but with a foxlike face wooed Luisa’s father and married him.  Something about her new stepmother unnerved her, so whenever she was around, Luisa would run outside.  The first time she did, she saw the same, blue-eyed fox sitting beneath the rose bush, watching her.  She froze until she heard her stepmother calling for her, and then instead of running back to the house, she ran towards the rose bush and the fox so that she could hide.  The fox dug beneath the bush, and Luisa followed it, more afraid of that woman than of the wild beast.

Beneath the rose bush, Luisa found herself in the fox’s den, but it wasn’t like any animal den she could have imagined.  There was a teapot and tea leaves next to a little stove and oven.  She looked up and there were stars carved into the ceiling next to the little holes to filter out the cooking smoke.  There was a stool for her to sit on, so she did, and a big pile of pillows and blankets in the other corner, where the fox had curled up.  She sat on the stool with her hands in her lap and, finally, asked, “Why do you keep watching me?”

The fox lifted its head and looked at her, and when it finally spoke, Luisa realized that the fox was a _she_.

“You need my help,” the fox said as her tail wrapped around her body once more.

“Then why don’t you just help me?”

“I can’t.  It’s not my job to help every human child who needs me.  Not without gaining something in return.”

Luisa looked down at her hands, and they clenched into little fists.  “How can a little girl like me help a great beast like you?”

The fox blinked her great blue eyes and seemed to bare her teeth in an almost human-like grin.  “Let me test you, and we will see.”

But Luisa shook her head.  “Why should I help you when I don’t know why I need you?”

“Your stepmother,” the fox said as her grin disappeared.  “She is another fox.”

“Like you?”

“Not at all like me.  She desperately wants to be human.”

“She seems like she is.”

The fox shook her great head.  “Ask to help her when she undresses for her bath.  There will be a great tattoo on her back.  Press on the nose just between her shoulder blades, and you will see.”

Luisa nodded once.  “What do you want in repayment for your advice?”

“A plate of biscuits you have made yourself and for you to return and make me a pot of tea from the rose petals overhead.”

Luisa agreed and left the fox’s den, climbing back out the same way she came in.  When she got out of the den, she was covered in dirt and mud, and when she returned inside, her stepmother gasped in dismay.

“How could you do this?” she asked, her voice an annoyed, high pitch.  “What have you done to your clothes?”

But Luisa knew better than to respond in that matter.  Instead, she said, “Stepmother, you must clean me yourself, or else Father will return and be very upset with you.”

Her stepmother’s dark brown eyes glinted once in the light, and her lips curved into a foxlike grin, such that her sharp teeth pointed out.  Luisa hadn’t noticed how sharp they were before.

This time, the woman only gestured, crooking one finger, and Luisa felt compelled to follow her.  Her stepmother led the way to the huge family bathroom, where Luisa was expected to get in the bathing tub.  She gulped once, then said, “Stepmother, will you get in and make sure the water is warm enough for me first?”

Her stepmother licked her lips with a tongue far too long for any human being to have.  Her eyes moved to Luisa’s chest, the center, right where her heart should be, then she nodded once.  “Do not look, child,” she said, and Luisa turned away, hiding her face, as her stepmother disrobed.

But, all of a sudden, Luisa heard a soft yipping from outside, and she turned to face the window.  As she did so, she saw the great tattoo of a fox inked into her stepmother’s back, and she quickly rushed forward and pressed on the nose between the woman’s shoulder blades.

Her stepmother gave a great cry and turned around, lips curled back in a snarl with a great growl, and as Luisa watched, the woman began to change!  The hand outstretched to grab her turned into a black-footed paw; the once human feet slipped on the wet tile as a big, bushy red tail grew from her lower back; and as she fell forward, she landed on all fours – a fox once more!

Luisa screamed!

Hearing the sound, her father rushed from the front door, as he was just returning home from a long day of work, and seeing the fox in the bathroom, he chased her out!  The fox that was once the woman of her stepmother ran away, yipping, and barely made it through the front door before Luisa’s father slammed it on her tail!

When her father made it back to the bathroom, Luisa was crying, her hands in tight little balls rubbing at her eyes, and he picked her up gingerly in one hand.  “It’s okay, my darling,” he murmured, rubbing his hand on her dirt-stained back.  “I’m here, and that evil fox is gone.”

Luisa nodded against his shoulder and sniffled once.  “Thank you, Daddy,” she said, “for saving me from the great beast.”

Her father nodded, and as her sobs ceased, he placed her back on the ground.  He left the bathroom and looked around, unhappy.  “Where is your stepmother?” he asked.  “Why wasn’t she here to protect you?”

But before Luisa could open her mouth to tell him the truth, a loud knock came at the front door.  Afraid that this was her stepmother returning again, Luisa pulled on her father’s hand, trying to hold him in place, but he shook her off.  She followed him, grabbing onto his shirttails ineffectively.

When her father opened the door, a policewoman with bright blue eyes was standing there.  “Emilio Solano?” she asked in a voice that, to Luisa, seemed familiar.

“Yes?”

“I need to talk to you about your wife.”

As the policewoman with the bright blue eyes explained to her father that they’d found the body of his latest wife some miles away with her heart torn out in the same manner as his first wife, Luisa peered around her father’s suit jacket, trying to think of where she could place the voice.  She examined the policewoman, noting her bright red hair and foxlike face, and when she met the woman’s eyes, she found that although the woman was speaking with her father, her eyes kept returning to Luisa!  She took a deep breath, eyes wide, and hid behind her father again.

The very next day, while her babysitter was asleep, Luisa made a plate of biscuits with honey and carried them very gently to the rose bush where she had first met the fox.  She looked through the roses and picked the choicest petals from the ones she could both see _and_ reach, and when she’d gotten as many as she believed she needed, she put them on the plate next to the biscuits and crept much more carefully into the fox’s hole.

When she got inside, Luisa found the den to be empty, but she set herself to her task anyway.  She used a tiny match to start a fire beneath the stove and set about making tea from the rose petals she’d gathered.  She found two little cups in one of the fox’s cupboards, and when the tea was done, she left it warming on the stove while she put the plate of biscuits and honey on the middle of the stool she’d previously sat on, making it into a little table.

All at once, the fox appeared, although she seemed much more haggard and tired than before.  She curled up in front of the stool table then looked up at Luisa.  “You cannot stay while I eat and drink.  It is too much knowledge for you to bear.”

“Oh,” Luisa said.  She rang her hands together.  “Don’t you want me to clean up?”

“I can do it myself,” the fox said, her bright blue eyes never leaving Luisa for a second.

“Oh,” Luisa said again.  Then she nodded and turned to leave the den.

“Do not look for me here again,” the fox said as Luisa moved to leave.  “I will need to move to find other children who need my help.”

“But what if I need you?” Luisa asked, and her eyes finally met the fox’s.  “How will I find you?”

“I shall know before you do,” the fox said.  “Now go, and don’t look back.”

Despite the fox’s words, Luisa came back the next day, but when she searched beneath the rose bush, it was as though the fox and her den had never existed.  There was no tunnel to travel into her little hole and no mark that there was ever anything there but a rose bush.  Even the petals Luisa had torn from their stems had been replaced!  She realized, at that moment, that she would likely never meet the fox again and felt sad for not having thanked her properly.

Still, Luisa held the memories of the fox close to her chest, and even as she grew older, she never forgot her.


	2. Chapter 2

As the years passed, Luisa grew from small child into beautiful woman.  Her hair grew long and luxurious, and her stature was as that of a lean mountain cat, curious and wild.  She learned how to dance.  Men came from far and wide in order to woo her, and when she came out as her true self, women began to do the same.  It seemed as though her suitors would never end!  And through it all, she kept her eye out for the appearance of her fox.

When she came of age, Luisa left her father’s home.  She went far away, where no one knew her name, to study her given trade as a healer, so that she might be seen on basis of herself as a person instead of how they heard of her.  But in that far away country, she was lured by a curious drink, one that made her feel relaxed and excited and happy, and she became one of the band who met in the common taverns as often as possible to become high off of what the drink could offer.

For twelve days and twelve nights, Luisa stayed at the tavern, and each night she took a different woman back to her bed.  But on the thirteenth day, she drank alone, and that night, she left alone.  She cradled the bottle to her chest as she walked away, and halfway to her new hovel, she tripped and fell.  She held the bottle aloft, so that it would not be dashed to shards as she fell, but this caused her to hit the hard concrete hard, pounding her head on the ground.  After a few moments, she let out a groan and crawled over to the nearby patch of grass, where she curled up on her side, intending to stay there, where robbers and bandits could come to harm her.

Luisa looked up, and her eyes caught the blue bright eyes of her fox.  The fox watched her, tail curling around her body, then turned and walked away.  Without thinking, Luisa began to crawl after her, and a few moments after the fox disappeared, she fell down another deep tunnel into the fox’s den.  It looked much the same as before, although the stars in the ceiling made her wince with how bright they appeared.  Before, they had only been carvings, but now that it was dark out, she could see the light burning within.  She forced herself into a standing position then crawled over to the stool she once sat on.  But when she went to sit, she didn’t gauge the distance correctly and ended up sitting back down in the dirt in front of it – _hard_ , as she’d planned on sitting on the stool – and instead leaned against the stool’s legs for support, still cradling her bottle in her hands.

“Why are you here?” Luisa asked.  She bit on her lower lip as she watched the beast where she was curled up.

The fox’s tail flicked back and forth in front of her nose.  “Isn’t it obvious?”  She lifted her head, ears cocked.  “You need my help.”

“It’s not that obvious.”

Luisa tried to brush some of the dirt from her dress, but it didn’t seem to come off.  Her eyes narrowed, and she brushed harder, but nothing changed.

“What are you doing?” the fox asked, bright eyes seeming to not move.

“It’s… _dirty_.  Don’t you see that spot?”

“No.”  The fox crept from her pile of blankets and pillows to sniff at the edge of Luisa’s dress.  “There isn’t anything there.”

“Oh.”

With the fox this close, Luisa couldn’t help herself.  She reached out a hand to pet her fur—

Only for the fox to jump back with a snarl!

“You are not worthy,” the fox said, her voice rough and gravelly.  She bared her teeth and stalked back to her pile before perching atop it.  “You need help.”

Luisa nodded once, finally agreeing with the fox.  “What must I give you as payment for this help?”

“A kiss.”

Luisa’s head popped up, but the fox continued before she could say anything.

“When you leave my den, make a right and continue as though returning to your hovel.  You will come across another tavern, one you have never seen before.”  The fox curled up on her pile of blankets.  “Go inside.  You will see a woman with long black hair and thin gloves sitting at the bar.  Touch her shoulder, where she is marked with the tattoo of a crane.  Tell her you need help.  She will direct you to where you must go next.”

“But the kiss!” Luisa exclaimed.  “Before I leave, should I—”

“Not with that drink staining your tongue.”  The fox bared her teeth again.  “Now get out.”

Luisa struggled to stand again then decided, instead, to crawl back to the tunnel entrance.  She paused there, afraid to ask, then turned back.  “Will you help me find the tavern?” she asked.  “It’s dark and I’m afraid I might miss it.”

The fox considered her words, her tail flicking back and forth.  Finally, she said, “Get out of my den.  Wait on the sidewalk and someone will meet you there.”

Afraid to press further and uncertain of how she’d know who she was waiting on, Luisa took her bottle and climbed back up out of the fox’s den.  She went back to the sidewalk and sat on its edge, and while waiting, unable to stop herself, she took a deep gulp from the bottle.  Instantly she felt herself relax, but she also felt horrible for having any more at all.

But almost as soon as she started to feel bad again, a hand touched her shoulder.  Luisa looked up and saw the form of the policewoman who had delivered the news to her father so many years ago.  She squinted, but no matter how she looked at her, the woman seemed to not have aged a day.

“Are you the one my fox sent?” she asked.

“ _Your_ fox?” the woman echoed, and she grinned a foxlike grin, tongue poking out between her pointed teeth.  “Are you the one I’m meant to help?”  She stretched out a hand to help Luisa stand.

Luisa’s head ached all at once, and she let out a groan.  She took the woman’s outstretched hand and leaned heavily on it as she stood back up.  “Please.  Don’t mess with my head.  I already don’t…  I don’t….”

“It’s okay.”  The woman held her hand on Luisa’s back, just between her shoulder blades.  “Let’s get you to the woman you need to meet.”

Luisa nodded and continued to lean heavily against the redheaded woman with the foxlike grin as they continued to walk down the sidewalk.  But as they walked, her heart seemed to grow heavier and heavier until, finally, she stopped.  “Are you sure?” she asked, her voice small.  “Are you sure that this is the kind of help I need?”  She turned to the side and looked at the woman with the foxlike face.  “How do you know this will help?”

“Did the fox say it will help?”

“Yes.”

“Then it will.  You can trust your fox.”

They stopped in front of a tavern Luisa had never noticed before, and the redheaded woman squeezed her hand.  “We’re here.”

Luisa turned to look at the tavern.  It was dark and old and the lights filtering through its windows were a foggy golden amber, like she imagined the eyes of a bug might be or looking through a sticky glass of thick frozen honey.  She turned back to the redhead.  “Will you stay with me?” she asked.  “I’m afraid to go in there alone.”

“I cannot go with you,” the woman said.  “You may be afraid, but do not worry.  The fox sent you here, and the fox would not send you somewhere she does not trust.  You may go inside alone, but you won’t _be_ alone.”

Luisa nodded once and bit her lower lip.  She felt like a child again, like she had when her father found the body of her mother and she’d seen the great tattered hole in her chest.  Even though she wanted to obey the fox, her feet seemed frozen to the ground, and her eyes fell to meet them.

Without warning, the woman with red hair leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.  Luisa took a deep breath, and in the center of her chest, her heart filled with a sudden, aching pain.  She gasped!  She closed her eyes tight.  “You could come back with me instead,” she found herself saying as the woman’s lips lingered, cold, on her skin.  “We could run away and go somewhere else.  You could help me, and I don’t have to go in there.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and despite how hard she tried to keep them where they were, one traitorous tear ran down her cheek.  The woman with red hair removed her hand from Luisa’s and cupped her cheek, her thumb brushing the tear away.  “You know we cannot do that.”

“ _Please_ ,” Luisa pleaded, and she tilted her head back to look the other woman plain in the face.  But when she opened her eyes, the other woman was gone, leaving only the warmth of her hand on Luisa’s cheek.  Luisa looked for her left and right down the sidewalk but saw nothing, and when she finally turned back towards the dark tavern, she saw the flicker of a fox’s tail at the far end of the alleyway.  But she couldn’t be sure that’s what it was, because as soon as she noticed it, the bright red turned down another alley and disappeared entirely.

Her hand tightened on the bottle she still held, and Lusia froze again, looking down at what lay in her hand.  She’d forgotten she’d had it with her focus on the woman who’d been walking with her.  She gritted her teeth together and dashed the bottle against the concrete.  Then, before she could think on it any longer, she ran into the tavern.

Inside the tavern seemed dark and dank and loud, and throbbing music played overhead, so loud that it vibrated through Luisa’s skin.  She shivered once, but that didn’t fix the uncomfortable feeling.  Still, she walked slowly through the darkness, making her way through the patterns of blue and pink on the floor, until she approached the bar.  She looked left and right along it, looking for the black-haired woman the fox mentioned, and there, on one end, she saw who she hoped it was.  As she walked closer to her, she could make out the gloves adorning her hands, and when she finally stood next to her, she could see the crane dancing on her left shoulder.

Pressing her lips together, Luisa held out her bare left hand and touched the crane etched into her skin.

All of a sudden, the woman gave a strangled gasp, almost as though she was choking, and she turned with wild, dark eyes that searched Luisa’s face.  “Don’t touch me,” she said, pulling her arm away from Luisa’s grasp.

“I need help,” Luisa said, trying her best to hold the woman’s gaze.

“Not _my_ help,” the woman said, turning away and leaning her back against the bar.

Luisa reached out to touch the crane again, and the woman caught her hand with one of her gloved ones.  “I said don’t touch me.”

“I was sent to you,” Luisa said, her voice shaking.  “I was told to touch the crane and to tell you I needed help and that you would tell me where to go after that.  I’m here.  I did what I was meant to do.  _Help me._ ”  By the end of her words, her voice had taken on a confident, angry tone.  Desperate, even.

But none of this seemed to phase the black-haired woman, who only released Luisa’s hand and picked up a glass next to her, one that held an amber liquid that Luisa knew well.  “You were sent here by a fox,” the woman said, finally, after taking a large gulp of her drink, “one that you met when you were a child, one that you trust for no reason other than you were less afraid of her than you were of your stepmother.”

“She was right, wasn’t she?  My stepmother _was_ evil.  She killed my mother, and she would’ve killed me and my father.  I was right to trust the fox then, and I’m right to trust her now.”  Luisa stood up to her full height, which was not quite enough to match that of the woman next to her, but she hoped it looked intimidating anyway.  “You _will_ help me, won’t you?”

The woman reached into her back jeans pocket and pulled out a little white card.  Before she handed it over, she placed it on the bar and wrote something on the back of it.  “Here,” she said, holding the now stained card out to Luisa.  “This is where you should go.”  She flipped the card over.  “And this is my number.  Call me when you get out.”

“Why would I call you?” Luisa asked, taking the card and holding onto it like her life depended on it.  “You don’t even like me.”

“You need more help than that place will give you.  They’ll get you off the drink.  I’ll help you keep from drinking.”

Luisa’s eyes narrowed.  “You drink.”

“I’m not an addict.  You are.”  Her eyes looked Luisa down and back up.  “Now are you going to do what I told you, the way your little fox said, or are you going to strike out on your own?”

Luisa left the tavern with the card in her hand.  She knew the address and began walking to her next destination.  By the time she arrived, she’d sobered up with a pounding headache, and the sun was starting to cross the horizon.  But once she got inside, she knew she could relax and be safe, and she fell forward on one of the plush couches, immediately going to sleep.  She was conscious long enough to feel someone cover her with a blanket, and then she was out.

* * *

 

Time passed while Luisa recovered, and when the center finally determined she was well enough to leave, Luisa found the sun to be far brighter and warmer than she had remembered.  Freedom tasted sweet.  Sobriety did, too.

Luisa began to gather what she needed to pay the fox, expecting her to show up for payment as soon as she was well, but as more time passed, she did not see her.  Instead, she kept everything on her, so that she would prepared at any moment.  She called the number the crane-marked woman had written on the back of the card and began to see her, seeking further healing so that she would not be ensnared by the drink again.

It was after what must have been her fourth or fifth time – Luisa did not keep count – that she saw the fox waiting for her beneath a nearby rose bush.  As soon as she noticed her, the fox turned away and slipped into her den.  Luisa paused only long enough to gather choice petals from the roses overhead, and then she followed her beneath the bush.

The most interesting thing about the den, Luisa realized now that she wasn’t under the power of the drink, was that it still felt just as large and roomy as it had when she was a child.  Perhaps its shape had grown to accommodate her, or perhaps it was bigger than she remembered.  Either way, she didn’t feel cramped in the amount of space she was given.  Immediately, she took the petals she had gathered and set about making more tea for the fox.

“That is not the payment I required,” the fox said from her perch on her pile of pillows and blankets.

“I know.”  Luisa continued to heat the water for the tea.  “But I thought you would like a cup of tea, as well.”

“I would, but you know well that you are not allowed to watch me eat or drink.  The knowledge is too much for you to bear.”

“Then it will be here waiting for you when I leave.”  Luisa turned to face the fox and pulled a bit of chocolate wrapped in foil out of her pocket.  She held it out to the fox.  “Here.  Your kiss.”

The fox bared her teeth and began to growl.  “I cannot eat that.  It is poisonous to one with this form.”

“Oh.”  Luisa hid the piece of chocolate back in her pocket.  The tea kettle began to whistle, and she moved it from the stove, pouring it over petals in one of the fox’s little cups.  These, at least, seemed to have retained their original size; they had seemed so big when she was a child.  She left the cup to cool next to the stove and turned once more to face the fox.  She pulled a small silver sewing tool from her pocket and placed it on her right thumb before holding it out to the fox.  “Here,” she said again.  “Your kiss.”

“I am not a child,” the fox said, her voice worn and tired, “nor am I a fairy to confuse that with the payment I require from you.”

Luisa nodded as she hid the thimble back in her pocket.  She stepped forward and knelt before the fox where she sat on her throne of comfort.  “I am not worthy to touch you,” she said, head lowered.  “You said so yourself.”

“You were not worthy _then_ ,” the fox said, voice suddenly soft, “but you have overcome what was binding you.  I will accept you as worthy now.”

It was then that Luisa began to smile, and she looked up, letting her dark eyes meet the fox’s bright ones.  She reached out one hand near to the fox’s fur then asked, voice gentle, “May I?”

The fox glanced from her face to her hand then leaned forward in the manner of a cat, sniffing her skin.  After the span of a heartbeat, the fox butted against Luisa’s hand, her eyes closed.  Luisa brushed her hand through the fox’s fur, finding it as silken and soft as she’d imagined, and scratched around her ears, finding them to be as though covered in the purest crushed velvet.  When her other hand began to brush against the fox’s side, the great beast seemed to jump in her skin before relaxing once more with a little huff.

After a few moments, Luisa carefully trained her fox’s head down and pressed a kiss to her forehead as gentle as the one the woman with red hair pressed to hers before she had disappeared.  When she moved back, the fox pressed her nose into her skin where her jaw met her neck, cold and wet, and Luisa let out a startled gasp.

She was surprised to find she liked it.

Then the fox moved away, pulling back from her touch, and Luisa leaned back on her knees, clasping her hands in her lap, head lowered, waiting for her next instruction.

“Leave,” the fox said finally, her voice more haggard than Luisa had ever heard it before.  “Leave so that I may drink the tea you have prepared for me.”

“Of course.”  But Luisa did not move.  “When will I see you again?” she asked instead, eyes peering up through her lashes.

The fox was still watching her, bright blue eyes clouded over.  “The same as before,” she said, voice hollow.  “When you need me, I will appear.  Do not look for me here any longer, for you will not find me.  I will find you.”

This time Luisa nodded and prepared to leave.  She stopped at the entrance to the tunnel and glanced back, but the fox had buried herself so far beneath her blankets and pillows that she could not be seen.  Luisa placed her hand on the dirt wall, feeling its fragile nature, and smiled.  “Thank you again, for coming to help me.”

“Each time you have paid me in full,” the fox said, her voice muffled beneath the blankets.  “Your thanks is not necessary.”

“Necessary or not, I’m grateful.  I would not be here without your help.”

“Please go,” the fox said, her voice tired.  “I would like to be alone.”

“As you wish.”

Luisa crawled back through the tunnel and brushed as much dirt from her clothes as she could.  Then she took more choice petals from the bush and, on returning to her hovel, made a cup of her own tea.  It did not taste as sweet as she expected the tea she’d made for her fox was, but it was enough – warm and soothing as her fingers tapped against the mug, hoping that she would not need to wait so long to see her fox again.


	3. Chapter 3

Weeks passed, and although Luisa kept an eye out for her fox, she saw neither hide nor hair of her.  Perhaps this was for the best.  She completed her studies to be a healer and returned to the land of her father.  It was good to see him once more, but she knew how he felt about foxes.  Ever since her stepmother’s death, he had gone out of his way to hunt them whenever he had time to do so.  A fox, he believed, had killed both of his wives, and all foxes, he believed, should pay for it.  They had yet to find the fox who had masqueraded in the form of her stepmother, and even if they did, Luisa wasn’t certain how they would know it was her.

It was good, then, that Luisa hadn’t seen her fox since her return.  Maybe this was the real reason for the years between her appearances.  Maybe the fox was too afraid to be seen where her kind were so vehemently hunted.  Luisa would understand that.  And every so often, Luisa’s hand would reach for the spot where her jaw met her neck.  She would run her finger along the skin where her fox’s nose pressed against it, still undecided on how she truly felt.  All she knew was that it felt nice and that she wouldn’t mind if it happened again.

Given that she’d spent so much time away, the suitors for Luisa’s hand had dried up.  This was part of Luisa’s intent in leaving, and she was glad to see her plans paid off.  But she was lonely, having left her friends and the crane woman behind in their faraway land, and she took to visiting taverns once more.  It was nice to be among people, even if she wasn’t partaking in their drink any longer.

One evening, while she was sitting alone at the bar, Luisa caught sight of a familiar face in the reflection on her glass of water.  She turned to face the doorway and was surprised to find that what she’d seen was real – the redheaded woman who had helped her find the crane woman, the one who was sent to her by her fox, was standing there, eyes searching the tavern.  Although in their previous meetings, she’d been dressed either in the uniform of her job or in something much more demure, this time it seemed to Luisa that she had dressed in a way meant to entice others by showcasing her looks, and not for the first time, Luisa found herself appraising her.  Luisa’s fingers fiddled with the straw in her drink as she raised her other hand to catch the woman’s attention, gesturing for her to come and sit with her.  Much to her surprise, the woman’s bright blue eyes lit up as she noticed her, and without hesitation, the woman came and joined her, sitting on one of the little stools next to her.

“Hi.”

The woman’s eyes glanced to Luisa’s drink, and Luisa said, without thought, “I’m not.  It’s not.  This isn’t—”  She took a deep breath, trying to still herself.  “It’s water.  You can—  Here.”  She passed the drink to the other woman.  “Taste it.  If you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you.”

“Oh.”  Luisa took her glass back and lifted it for a gulp in an attempt to calm herself down.  It didn’t work.  “I’m surprised you’re here.  I thought you would hate being in a place like this.”

“I do,” the woman admitted, eyes moving from Luisa to roam about the room again.  “So many people....”  Her eyes returned to Luisa’s.  “It doesn’t feel _safe_.”

“Would you like to go somewhere else?” Luisa asked.  She lowered her head to look into her glass of water then looked back up, fingers tapping against the glass.  “Somewhere with less…people?”

The woman was silent for what felt like too long, and Luisa could feel her cheeks heating with an embarrassed flush.  She looked back at her drink, avoiding the woman’s eyes.  But then the woman’s fingers touched hers, tracing along the cool of her drink.  Luisa glanced back up, catching the woman’s foxlike grin.

“ _Yes._ ”

The blush across her cheeks deepened as Luisa placed her glass back on the bar, along with enough gold to more than pay for their drinks.  She wasn’t sure how much she left behind.  She wasn’t paying attention.  Then she tentatively took the woman’s hand and led her out of the tavern.

Once they left the tavern, the redhead moved so that she could walk side-by-side with Luisa.  The sidewalk wasn’t quite wide enough for both of them, so they kept knocking into each other.  At first, Luisa meant to apologize, but when she turned, she saw the woman’s grin and the trickster glint in her eyes and relaxed.  It was then that she, too, became much more intentional in how she bumped into the other woman – always gentle, never rough.

They didn’t say much as they walked.  The streets were loud with people planning to celebrate _something_ , although Luisa couldn’t say just what holiday it was.  She’d lost track of the days since far before she returned, having no need to know the date except when she needed to expect her next shipment of medicine to come in.  Instead, she and the woman communicated through the gentle touch of one body against the other, fingers tangling together, hands giving each other a squeeze, sometimes brushing chastely against thighs.

When they found a location that seemed much more secluded, _abandoned_ , even, they stopped, entering through the feeble, unlocked gate and sitting on the edge of a pond full of koi and other fish.  Luisa immediately disentangled her fingers from the other woman’s and dipped them into the pond, and the koi eagerly came to her touch, playing about her fingertips.  She giggled and gestured for the woman to do the same, but when the redhead dipped her fingers into the pond, the koi sped away.  No matter what Luisa did, she couldn’t get them to return, and she glanced at the redhead in confusion.  Before the other woman could offer an explanation, Luisa just shook her head.  “The fish must not be very smart, to run from you.”

The woman just smiled, but it held no real mirth.  Her head lowered, close enough so that she could brush her nose against Luisa’s, and even in the summer heat, it felt so cold that Luisa shivered.

“Are you afraid?” the woman asked, her eyes searching Luisa’s own.

“No,” Luisa said without hesitation, focusing on the moon reflected in the redhead’s eyes.  “You’ve given me no reason to be.”  Then she leaned up and kissed her – a quick, chaste thing – but when she moved away, the other woman leaned into her, continuing the kiss.

Luisa hummed with pleasure, and she thought she could hear the other woman purring.  Her skin felt like it was on fire, and as her fingers curved through the woman’s hair, she felt little shocks at her tips, as though lightning struck with each touch.  She’d never felt like this before.  It was indescribable.

“You taste so good,” the woman said as their lips finally parted, “you make me want to—”

“—eat me?” Luisa asked, her other hand tangling in the woman’s tight dress.

The woman hesitated, eyes searching Luisa’s for something she couldn’t name, then she grinned, the little foxlike expression with the pointed teeth, and said, voice hushed, “Yes,” and again, more insistent, “ _yes_.”

Luisa brushed her hand through the woman’s hair.  “Then go ahead.  _Eat me._ ”

The woman nodded, brushing her nose against Luisa’s as she did, and moved as though to kiss Luisa’s neck, but at that very same moment, a loud _bang!_ exploded overhead!  All of a sudden, the woman jumped in her skin and curled up against Luisa’s body, hiding her face in her neck, one hand clinging tight to Luisa’s wrist.  She shivered, but not with cold.

“What was that?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.

Luisa looked up towards the sky and saw the sparkling bits of colored flame overhead.  “It’s just fireworks,” she said, rubbing one hand along the woman’s back.  “They can’t hurt you.”

“They sound like gunshots.”

“Are you okay?” Luisa asked, trying to look at the other woman’s face again, fingers curling beneath the woman’s chin as though to lift it.

“Yes.  _Yes._ ”  The woman stepped back from Luisa’s touch, her head still lowered.  “Take me somewhere else,” she said, voice rough.  “Somewhere hidden.  Somewhere _safe_.”  She looked up, her bright eyes covered with a cloud.  “Somewhere no one else will be able to find us.”  Another boom split the sky, and the woman curled back against Luisa’s chest, pressing her cold nose in the same spot where the fox had only a few weeks ago.  “ _Please._ ”

Luisa gasped at the sudden cold touch and couldn’t suppress the muffled sound between her teeth.  “Ok.  I’ll take you somewhere else.  Somewhere safe.  Somewhere _quiet_.”  She brushed her hand through the woman’s red curls again, trying to calm her.  “C’mon.  Let’s go.”

The fireworks continued to sparkle, crackle, and explode overhead as Luisa led the woman away.  It was hard to move quickly, since the woman continued to curl herself around Luisa, hiding her face in the crook of her neck.  Luisa tried to call a carriage, but the horses seemed to panic the closer they got to them.  They were probably just as afraid of the loud sounds overhead as the woman with her was, and fear multiplied between them.  Even the woman’s eyes grew large as the horses’ hooves dashed to the ground in front of her, and she clung even closer to Luisa.

“No carriages.  No horses.”

She shivered again.  Luisa squeezed her hand, but that didn’t seem to help.  The sounds above softened as she led her to the outskirts of the city, disappearing to nothing more than soft booms as they entered the countryside.  There was no hope that the displays would end with the late hour; celebrations in the city often carried on almost as long as it was dark, even into the wee hours of the morning.

But far away, in a secluded grove surrounded by rose bushes and other flowers, there stood a small building that appeared to be covered with dirt.  It is to this building that Luisa led the other woman, unlocking the front door and holding it wide open while the woman sped inside.  She almost bumped into the woman as she entered the house, and after locking the door behind them, she rested her chin on the other woman’s shoulder.  “Too much?”

The woman’s still wide eyes looked over everything, and she took a deep breath before saying, voice hushed, “What did you do?”

“I got tired of waiting,” Luisa said as she moved around her, “and made my own.”  She glanced over the interior of her little house.  “It’s relaxing.”

The building seemed to be one big, open room, although there was a door off to one side for what she needed and hadn’t seen in the fox’s den.  With that one exception, everything was built and decorated in the same style as the little den, with a little stove and oven off to one side, a little stool to use as a table, and a bed frame covered with soft pillows and blankets.  Overhead, there were not stars filled with light covering the ceiling as they’d been quite impossible to find, but Luisa’d collected glow-in-the-dark stars which, with the lights off, gave a small greenish-gold glow.

Luisa placed a hand on the small of the other woman’s back.  “Come and sit with me.”

This time, the woman did not follow her, instead moving immediately to the bed and curling up in the middle of the mattress.  Luisa sat beside her, and when another, softer boom echoed overhead, the woman buried her head in Luisa’s lap.  Her body continued to shake and shiver, even as Luisa began to run her hand through her red curls once more.

“What do you do during thunderstorms?” she asked, suddenly curious.

“I dance in the rain.”  The woman’s words were muffled against her lap.

“But with the thunder?”

The woman shook her head.  “Thunder sounds different.  It rumbles, it echoes, it quivers.  It’s natural.  These explosions with no warning other than fire falling from the sky are nothing like that.  They sound like gunshots.”

“You said that before.”

“It didn’t stop being true.”

They continued to sit in silence – the woman curled up with her face buried in Luisa’s lap and Luisa continuing to brush her hand through her hair – until the woman said, voice still muffled, “I could sleep like this.”

“In that dress?”

“Mmmhm.”

“Don’t you want something more comfortable?”

“You wouldn’t have anything that would fit.”  The woman’s breathing slowed as she relaxed, then her eyes opened, curious as they passed over her.  “Is that what _you_ want?”

“Yeah.  This outfit was not made for sleeping.”  Luisa laughed.  “It’s just for looking nice until someone else gets it off.”

The woman pulled back from Luisa’s lap, resting on her palms.  “Go.  I’ll be okay for a few minutes.”

Luisa glanced over the woman’s pale face.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes.  But hurry.”

Luisa moved to the connected room – not because she minded whether or not the woman saw her, but because the fox’s den had no wardrobes, no place for clothes.  Through the doorway, she’d added a closet and a bathroom, and it was there that she stripped off her dress and stepped into loose fitting shorts and an overlarge maroon sweatshirt with a jackalope stitched on it in blinding white.  When she went back into the main room, the lights were off, and she slowly made her way back to the bed.  She tripped over a scrap of silken cloth lying on the floor and reached out to steady herself on the bed.

“Here.”  The woman placed her hand over Luisa’s.  “Close your eyes.”

Luisa obeyed, and the woman slowly guided her onto the bed next to her.  It wasn’t until the woman curled up next to her beneath the blankets and pulled Luisa’s arm around her that she realized the dress was gone.  The woman wrapped the blankets closer around them – less for warmth, more for comfort – and then pressed a kiss to the edge of Luisa’s jaw, at the same spot she’d nudged earlier.  Then she reached up and licked Luisa’s cheek before burrowing her face into Luisa’s chest.  Luisa noted that the woman’s tongue felt rough, like that of a cat, but it was a brief, fleeting note that didn’t linger.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” the woman said, voice soft.  “I owe you.”

“You’re afraid.  You don’t owe me anything for helping with that.”  Luisa kissed the woman’s forehead, mimicking her.  “And you helped me confront my fear, so, really, I owe you.”

The woman said something else, but Luisa didn’t hear it as she closed her eyes, lulled into unconsciousness by the soft blankets and the warmth of the woman lying next to her.

* * *

 

Luisa woke first, as glimmers of light filtered through the small windows she’d had built into the ceiling.  She stretched, and as she moved, the woman lying next to her curled closer, butting her nose against her chest.  Luisa brushed a hand through her hair again before scratching her nails gently along her back.  The woman let out a low grumbling noise and stretched upwards, resting her chin on Luisa’s shoulder and pressing a kiss to her neck.

“Someone’s feeling better,” Luisa said, continuing to run her nails down the woman’s back.

The other woman purred in a manner Luisa hadn’t heard before.  “Much.”

“Good.”  Luisa kissed her forehead again.  “I’m thirsty.  Would you like something to drink?”  She grinned.  “It would help with bad breath.”

The woman’s head popped up, and her brows furrowed, expression almost wounded.  “I have bad breath?”

“You didn’t hear _me_ say that,” Luisa said, brushing her nose against the other woman’s.  “I have tea.  Water.  Milk.”

“Can you make rose petal tea?”

Luisa couldn’t suppress her grin.  “Yes.”  She crawled out of the bed and moved over to the little stove, rummaging through her cabinets for her tea kettle.  “I’ll just leave this warming while I go outside for fresh petals.”

But as Luisa started for the door, she paused, realizing that to make tea for the both of them she would want more petals than she could hold in both her hands.  So she turned back, hand moving from the doorknob, so that she could get a bowl.

It was as she turned that Luisa first saw it from the corner of her eye – the great tattoo of a fox etched into the other woman’s back – and she froze, eyes running over the tattoo where it curved along the slope of her skin.  She was relieved to see that there was no nose hidden between her shoulder blades, that instead the bushy tail was marked there and the nose at the base of her spine, but the relief didn’t stop the chill spreading in the pit of her stomach.

“Who are you?”

The woman glanced over her shoulder, first at the tattoo exposed along her back as she’d moved between the bed’s blankets, then a slower look up to Luisa’s face.  “That knowledge is too much for you to bear.”

“You said that you owed me.  This is the payment I want.”

“You refuted that claim.  I owe you nothing.”

“You are a _fox_ , and I demand to know _who you are_.”

“One who means you no harm.”

“ _Show me._ ”

“We are hidden?” the woman asked, her voice a whisper, eyes glancing about the room once more.  “We are safe?”

“You are hidden,” Luisa replied, echoing the woman’s words.  “I am safe.”

The woman lowered her head, nodding once, and dropped the blankets surrounding her, and as she moved out of the bed and fully faced Luisa, her form began to change.  As she changed, the room around them seemed to do so as well, the stars melding into the ceiling so that they appeared carved there, the blankets and pillows taking on a much more scarlet sheen.  She shrank until she landed on all fours, a long bushy tail growing out of her spine as fur grew from her darkening skin.  When she was finished, she sat on the ground, tail flicking about her black furred paws, blue bright eyes watching Luisa.

“My fox,” Luisa breathed out, her words softer than the woman’s had just been.

The fox did not move.  “You are not worthy.”  Then she let out a sigh and turned away from Luisa, jumping back onto the bed and curling up as she might have on her own plush pile.  “Your knowledge will kill me.”

“If you are like my stepmother,” Luisa began, stepping forward to meet the fox, “then why have you not eaten me, as she did my mother and the woman whose form she had taken?”

“I’m not like that beast,” the fox spat.  “She seeks to eat enough hearts to become fully human, and I—”

“You don’t?” Luisa asked, moving closer to the bed.  “You don’t wish to become human?”

“There are other ways to achieve my desire, and that is not something I wish to discuss with you.”

“I don’t see that you have much choice.  I found out who you are.”

“Would you harm me?”

Luisa hesitated then dropped her gaze.  “No.”

The fox lay her head down on her front paws and heaved a great sigh.  “Then you cannot force me to speak.”

“You came here,” Luisa said, finally, “with me, and you slept in my bed.  Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

“I have lived a thousand years before gaining this form and have lived longer still with it, and no human yet has seen and understood me.  Those who recognized the mark for what it was did not live long past that recognition.”

Luisa knelt on the ground before the bed.  “Will you kill me?”

The fox lifted her head, and she trained her bright eyes on Luisa.  Then she shook her head and laid it back down on her front paws.  “No.  You are not mine to kill.”  Before Luisa could ask, the fox closed her eyes.  “Make me your tea and another plate of biscuits with honey.  Then we can talk.”

Luisa knew in her fox den-like hovel she had barely enough flour for the biscuits and only a little of the honey left.  Outside, there were plenty of petals.  And yet, she was afraid.  “Will you stay here while I gather the petals?”

“Yes,” the fox said, not opening her eyes.

Luisa moved back to the door then paused, voice quiet with her fear as she asked, “When I return, will you help me make the biscuits?”

The fox opened her eyes, and her lips pulled back in a humanlike smile. “With these paws?”  She nodded to her little black feet.

“No.”  Luisa waited with her hand still on the doorknob.  “As a human.”  Her hand tightened on the knob.  “You have said I’m not worthy to watch you eat or drink, but you intended to share tea with me in that form.  Maybe it’s easier for us to speak as one human to another than to continue on like this.”  She tugged on her bottom lip.  “I didn’t think of this last night, but not all of the clothes in the other room are mine.  Some of them might fit you.”

“Go collect the petals, and I will see.”

“You will not leave me?”

“I’ve already said that I won’t.”

Luisa’s hand remained tight on the knob.  She wanted to ask the fox to join her outside.  If she was not hers to kill, then that meant someone else wanted her.  When she did not know, she did not know to be afraid, but now that those words lingered unexplained in her head, she felt paralyzed.  But to ask the fox to join her?  She was certain the response would be the same as it had been when she wanted her to go into the tavern with her, when she met the crane woman.

She had to face her fear herself.

The fox wouldn’t tell her to go somewhere that would harm her.

Luisa took a deep breath and left her hovel with a bowl in hand.  It was surrounded by rose bushes and roses of various colors, and she took a few petals from each bush, different colors, but primarily those of the red, pink, and white bushes.  Their petals felt softer in her hands than the others, and she expected their flavor would be better.  She also took a few sprigs of lavender with her, so that she might mix them into her own biscuits later.

When Luisa went back into the hovel, the fox was nowhere to be seen.  She shut the door slowly, and it clicked as it latched shut.  Even without the fox around, she began to move the now whistling tea kettle from the stove, placed some of the petals into the kettle, and then placed it back on the stove top so as to properly prepare the tea.

As she waited in front of the stove, a hand lightly squeezed her shoulder.  “Better?”

Luisa jumped at the touch!  Then she turned and, when she saw the redheaded woman standing behind her in ill-fitting clothes, she clung to her.  “You’re still here.”

“I said I would stay.  Why are you surprised?”

“When I came in you’d gone!”

“In the other room.  Looking through your clothes.  Like you told me I could.”  The woman stepped back, blue eyes searching Luisa’s face.  “Why did you think I would leave?”

“You said someone else wanted to kill me.  You leave whenever you’re done with me.  You seemed upset with me.”

“Have I ever done something other than I said I would?” the woman asked, fingers grazing Luisa’s cheek.

Luisa hesitated.  “I don’t know.  You are thousands of years old.  I’m not even a century.”

The fox woman laughed, a rough bark of a sound.  “Have I ever done something other than what I told _you_ I would?”

“No.”

The woman’s fingers brushed through Luisa’s hair, gentle as they always were.  “Then you had nothing to fear.”  Her touch lingered.

Luisa took a deep breath.  It was hard, standing this close to the woman, to remember how upset she was with her, to remember that she was a _fox_ and not a woman at all.

Then the woman spoke again, and she remembered all of that.

“Biscuits.”

“Hm?”

“We were going to make biscuits.”

“Right.”  Luisa’s teeth gritted together, and she stepped back, away from the woman’s touch.  “Biscuits.”

The fox woman was silent as Luisa pulled out her scarce supplies, and the two remained silent as they worked.  Every now and again the woman would knock against Luisa, as she had the night before, when they were walking, before the fireworks began, but it didn’t have the same effect as it had then.  Luisa didn’t feel enamored to the woman if she didn’t look at her, and so her frustration and confusion only built up until they put the tray of biscuits in the little oven.

Luisa poured them each a cup of rose petal tea.  She mixed a little honey into hers but otherwise did nothing to the other woman’s.  “Am I still worthy for you to drink before me?”

“Yes.”  The woman’s cup clinked against the stool, which they were using as a table.  “What would you like to know first?”

“Who wants to kill me?”

“The fox who ate your stepmother’s heart,” the woman said.  “She believes that you and your father are hers by right, and that your escape was spitting in her face.  She intends that the two of you should be the last hearts she eats to become human.”

Luisa nodded once.  The cup of tea kept her hands warm.  She did not drink it.  “How long do we have?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you have killed me if she hadn’t claimed me?”

“No.”  The woman did not hesitate.

“Why not?”

The woman was silent long enough for Luisa to acknowledge that this question was one she would not answer.  Then she lifted her cup for a sip of tea as though to indicate that she should move on to another question.

“Do _you_ want to become human?”

The woman hissed through bared teeth in an expression that looked out of place on a human but that would fit perfectly on the face of a fox.  But as it continued, the hiss became a single, low, desperate moan and a single word – “ _Yes._ ”

Her hollow ache sat in Luisa’s heart alongside the feeling her first kiss outside the tavern had, and Luisa bit her lower lip to keep her eyes from filling with tears again.  “You said you aren’t eating hearts.  Why is that?  Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“Easier than what?” the woman asked, and she took another sip of her tea.  She shook her head.  “Humans protect themselves.  Chasing them down is a danger, and most dead hearts these days are filled with poison as though that will keep them from disintegrating.  I would rather live as I am than risk dying – or worse.”

“What’s worse than dying?”

But, again, the woman refused to answer.

“If you aren’t eating us, then how do you plan to become human?”

“I don’t.”

Luisa looked to the woman with an expression of dismay.  “You don’t?”

“You found me out.  I know better than to trust you to keep that secret.”  The woman took another sip of her tea, this time taking a little longer before swallowing.  “You will falter.  You will speak without thinking, and I will die.”

Luisa’s hand paused from where she’d instinctively reached out to comfort the fox woman.  She was offended by her words and assumptions; she hadn’t said anything about her fox in all the years she’d known her and didn’t see any reason to do so now.  But her offense was overcome by her desire to soothe, and she let her hand rest on the woman’s thigh.

“What do you need me to do?”

The woman lifted her face and looked into Luisa’s eyes.  “For ten years, you cannot breathe a word of my ability to anyone, nor can you tell anyone that I am a fox.  The moment you do, I will become nothing more than that – a fox with no memory of who or what I was.  I will need to live another thousand years in that form before I regain my abilities and my knowledge, and then the cycle will begin again.”

Luisa opened her mouth to speak, and where another might have thought better of the question, she pressed on.  “Has that happened to you before?”

“More than once.  Enough so that I grew tired of placing my faith in fragile, untrustworthy humans and decided, as you suggested, that devouring them was a far easier route.”

“What changed your mind?”

The woman was silent for a while, but not in the same way she was when she refused to answer a question.  She stood from her perch on the bed, holding her cup of tea between both hands.  “The last heart I ate,” she began, “was gifted to me by a woman who no longer desired to live.  She knew that foxes demanded payment for their favors and acted much like one of us might, providing her heart to gain a favor of me.”  The woman shook her head.  “Humans rarely care for one of their own to that extent, but this one used her longing to die to great gain for—”

The woman stopped speaking then and nodded towards the oven.  “The biscuits should be done.”

Luisa nodded, leaving her untouched cup of tea on the stool, and removed the biscuits from the oven.  She arranged them on a little white plate, careful to keep from burning her hands, and carried it over to where the woman was again sitting on the bed, placing it carefully on the stool in front of her.  Then she knelt in front of the stool, clasping her hands together, and lowered her head.

“If I wished to attain your favor and gain protection for my father, then what payment would be required?”

“I would not accept,” the woman said, picking one of the biscuits up with slender fingers and slitting it through with one nail to pour in an ample amount of honey.

“Why not?”

“Your father has declared war on my species.  To protect him would be to put myself at risk, not just from him, but also from others of my own species.  Nothing you could pay me would suffice.”

“Not even keeping your secret?”

“Not even keeping my secret.”

Luisa heaved a heavy sigh.  “Then there is no hope for him.”

“As long as he hunts my people, no.”

Luisa continued to stare at her hands, not watching as the woman ate.  “Is there anything I might do, or you might do, to help him?”

“If you wished,” the woman began after much consideration, holding what remained of her biscuit aloft, “I _could_ protect him, but not completely.  I could not join him on hunts, lest his horses panic at the scent of me and his dogs begin to chase me.  But I could protect him in this form, when it seems that the fox who ate your stepmother has begun her hunt for his heart.”

“Yes!” Luisa said, and her eyes lifted briefly, only to drop again when she noticed the unfinished biscuit.  “I—”

“You can watch.”

“You said I was not worthy.”

“You have redeemed yourself.”

Luisa lifted her eyes.  “What payment would that require?” she asked, watching as the fox woman continued to eat.  “To protect my father as you suggested, what would you want?”

The woman finished her biscuit, licking her lips with a tongue that Luisa only just noticed was slightly longer than that of an average human, exposing her sharp, pointed teeth.  She did not grin when she said, voice soft, “Your heart.”

“My heart?”  Luisa couldn’t stop her voice from squeaking.  “If you no longer eat us, then what would you do with that?”

“That is too much knowledge for you to bear.”  The woman tapped her nails on the little white plate.  “Eat, then make your decision.  There is no need to rush.”

“If you protect my father, if you keep him from dying to that woman, then you may have what you asked.  But if he dies, then you will receive no payment at all.”  Luisa looked up, meeting the woman’s blue bright eyes.  “Does this seem best to you?”

The fox woman didn’t even consider it before giving a firm nod.  “Now,” she said, slowly moving off of the bed, “I must leave.”

“To protect my father?”

“No,” she said.  “I will return when the time is appropriate.”

“Then where are you going?”

“I have not told you that before, and I will not tell you now.”  The woman ran her hands along the buttons of the shirt she’d found in Luisa’s wardrobe.  “Would you like these clothes back before I leave?”

“No.  You may keep them.”  Luisa shook her head.  “But why do you need to leave?”

“There are things I must do.”

“Now?”

“Now.”  The woman stood, replacing her shoes but leaving her silken dress on the floor.

“Do you need me to take you back?” Luisa asked as she, too, stood and followed the woman to the door.

“No.  I can reach my den from wherever I need.”  The woman stopped just before leaving and turned back to face Luisa.  She didn’t say anything, but instead looked at her with the same unflinching stare of the watching fox.  Then she stepped forward, not making a sound, and gave Luisa a gentle kiss.  When she moved away, her hand cupped Luisa’s cheek.  “Tell no one about me.”

“I won’t.”

“Don’t look for me.  I will return when you need me most.”

And with that, the fox woman left.

Luisa didn’t leave her little hovel for quite some time, instead eating the rest of the few biscuits they’d made and drinking the rest of the rose petal tea.  After she ate and drank, she curled up on her bed and buried herself beneath her blankets.  She felt exhausted, mind swarming with the new knowledge she’d gained from the woman – from her fox.  But she had nowhere to put it and no one to examine it with her.

So, after a few moments of examination, Luisa drifted off, taking a nap, where her few dreams were filled of talking fox women with bright blue eyes and a menacing smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the wait on this chapter. It's been drafted for quite some time, and then I sent the full text to a couple of betas. ...and then I got tired of waiting. Please let me know what you think! I honestly...ugh, this may be my favorite of my stories so far.
> 
> Also - because I think the last time I mentioned this was in an early chapter of Carla and different people read different things - if you want to keep up with writing updates (THERE ARE A LOT) both on stuff I'm currently writing or brainstorming or I've even done polls about what fics I should be focusing on or aus y'all'd like to see written, feel free to follow me at aparticularbandit.tumblr.com because that's where I tend to do those sorts of updates. ^^


	4. Chapter 4

Years passed, and just as before, Luisa saw neither hide nor hair of her fox or the woman she liked to become.  But this time, she listened to her fox’s words and she did not look for her – not in the tavern where they last met, not under the rose bushes just outside her window at her father’s mansion, not even at the little hovel she still kept.  This did not prevent her from imagining that she saw her beneath any rose bush she passed, blue bright eyes watching her, tail flicking back and forth in front of her snout.  Worse, sometimes when she saw a woman with a particular tint of red hair, she thought she was seeing the woman form of her fox and would go to meet her, only to find that she didn’t recognize the woman she’d seen at all – and once, it was even a man!

But she hoped and she trusted and she understood that this was a dangerous place for her fox and that, as much as Luisa would like to do so, she didn’t really help either.

Then one day, her father mentioned that he’d met a beautiful woman.  Luisa didn’t think much of this.  In fact, she was excited, as he seemed to be spending more time with her than on the hunts which had previously given him such joy and sense of purpose.  She saw this as maybe a sort of growth, and she hoped that maybe this change would allow her fox to feel more freedom to come and go as she pleased, particularly when it came to visiting her.  Eventually, though, her father mentioned that he would like the two of them to meet – Luisa and the woman he’d met – and since he planned to invite this new woman to come and stay with them, Luisa saw no reason not to agree.

Imagine her surprise when the woman who showed up was none other than her fox!

Luisa couldn’t stop the widening of her eyes to the point that her father, on seeing her face, asked if she’d ever met the woman before.  “Yes,” she said, nodding once.  “She was a good friend of mine while I was away, studying.  She’s the one who suggested I seek help to overcome the drink.”

“Then I have more to thank you for,” her father said to the redheaded woman.

The woman smiled as she replied, “You do.”

When her father left the table to go speak with a few of his hunting partners sitting across the room, Luisa pulled the woman to the side.  “Has she returned?”

“Yes.”  The woman’s eyes shifted over to Luisa’s father before returning.  “This is the easiest way for me to keep my eye on him, and it prevents her from taking that place again.”

“Again?” Luisa asked.  “Wouldn’t we recognize her?  Wouldn’t we know?”

“No,” the woman said, her head lowering.  “She can take the appearance of anyone whose heart she has consumed.”

Luisa tugged on her lower lip, not allowing herself to ask the question that jumped immediately to her mind, but when her eyes lifted, she saw the woman give her a gentle nod.

Both of them.  _Both of them_ could change their appearance.

Luisa reached over and gave the woman’s hand a gentle squeeze.  “I like the way you look.”

“I wanted you to know,” the woman said with a soft smile.  “I wanted you to know it was me.”

“Isn’t that risky?”

The woman shook her head.  “Even as she is,” and when she said _she_ , Luisa understood it to be _we_ , “her nose has a keen sense of smell.  No matter the form, a fox always knows another fox in disguise.”

“Is she here now?”

“No.”  The woman turned her head, lips pulled back almost enough to bare her teeth.  “No, she isn’t.”

“And you’ll be living with us?”

The woman’s head turned back with a foxlike grin.  “I thought it would be better for us to be together when your father goes on his hunts.”  The grin disappeared.  “I know you will be afraid, and I thought it would be best—”

“Thank you.”  Luisa squeezed the woman’s hand again.  “Thank you.”

And so they did.

* * *

 

The fox woman moved in with Luisa and her father.  She kept a room to herself, even though she continued as a partner for Luisa’s father, citing a need for her own separate, womanly space.  When he asked Luisa about this, Luisa said this was the same as she had been when she knew her in the far off land and, despite his confusion, her father allowed for it without further question.  His hunts continued to become much less frequent, due to his desire to spend more time with the woman he enjoyed than to go after foxes and animals, and even when he left to hunt, they were shorter, lasting only an hour or two at best, and he rarely came home with more than one skin, whereas before he’d gone for many hours and brought back no less than five skins.  Everything seemed to be going well.

Then her father announced that he had planned a weekend camping trip with his hunting friends.  He said he missed the longer hunts and wanted to take that time to himself.  No matter how much Luisa pleaded with him, her father’s mind could not be changed, and whenever she turned to her fox, the woman’s head was lowered.  Luisa dared not ask the woman to go with her father, since she’d been very vocal about her disdain for the hunt to him, and even if she hadn’t, Luisa dared not risk her fox for her father, even if that is what she had been doing in some manner up to this point.

“He’s going to die, isn’t he?” Luisa asked as she watched her father ride off with his four closest companions.

“He might not.  He might make it back alive.”

“Don’t lie to me.”  Luisa turned to the woman, tugging on her lower lip.  “He’s going to die, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

The woman said nothing further as Luisa turned her back and went to her own room, but a few moments later, the woman came to her room, knocking on the door.  When Luisa opened it, the woman had a suitcase already packed in one hand and another one, empty, held out to Luisa.

“What’s this for?”

“If your father is leaving for the weekend, then so are we.”  The woman pushed the suitcase to Luisa.  “You have taken me somewhere hidden, somewhere safe, and now I will do the same for you.”

Luisa wasn’t sure what to think, but she trusted her fox and packed her suitcase just the same.  Once she was done, the woman took her hand and led her out of the mansion.  They walked through the little town with their suitcases, and when passersby asked why they were walking instead of taking horses or a carriage, they explained that they wanted to be out in the countryside and to take the sun’s warmth as an excuse for a good bit of exercise.  Sometimes this meant they garnered strange looks, but for the most part, the townspeople understood.  When they finally reached the countryside, they were no longer stopped by people asking them such questions, and yet Luisa didn’t feel as though she should speak or interrupt whatever the woman was thinking.  But once they were alone, the woman began to knock into her in much the same manner as she had when Luisa first brought her to her hidden hovel, and despite her overwhelming fear for her father, Luisa found herself relaxing.

“Here,” the woman said, finally, and they stopped in front of Luisa’s hidden hovel.

“This isn’t new,” Luisa said with disappointment.  “I thought you were taking me somewhere new.  I don’t even need this.”  She lifted her suitcase.

“Open the door.”

Luisa did, and they both entered.  Then she locked the door behind her.  Nothing appeared to have changed.  But the woman walked towards the center of the hovel, dusted the floor off as much as possible, and placed her bare hand on the ground.  A hole appeared beneath her hand, expanding, expanding, until there was a tunnel right in the center of the floor!  Then she took her suitcase and began to walk down the tunnel with a gesture for Luisa to follow her.  So Luisa did.

There, beneath her own version of the fox’s den, lay the real den itself!  It was even bigger this time than she remembered, with additional cupboards full of she knew not what, a new wardrobe off to one side into which the woman had already begun to place the clothes from her suitcase, and a door in the same spot as the room Luisa had added – which she hoped held bathing and toiletry, if they were meant to stay here for the entire weekend.

The woman saw Luisa’s eyes taking in the new additions and grinned her foxlike grin.  “Leave your suitcase with me, and go look.”

“Do you have tunnels everywhere?” Luisa asked as she placed her suitcase next to the fox woman’s.  “Do they all lead to the same den?”  Her eyes searched the woman’s bright blue ones.  “Or do you have a lot of different dens for different occasions?  And did you add these,” she gestured to the new wardrobe and cupboards, the door to one side, “or have they always been there?  Did I know that door,” she nodded to the new one, “without ever seeing it, or did you only just add it while you were away?”

The woman didn’t answer any of Luisa’s questions, instead tilting her head towards the door.  “Go _look_.”

Luisa scrunched her nose and gave the woman a fake scowl before leaving her suitcase next to her and opening the door.  She turned back with her hand on the knob just to stick out her tongue and say, “Look, I’m going!” before walking inside the new room.

It was exactly what she expected – toiletries and bathing – but far better than anything she’d known to imagine.  Cobblestone for tile, little rocks as though she were near a river or waterfall that led to a deep pool filled with cold, clear water and rocks above for water to fall over.  She might as well have been at a mountain spring or a pool hidden somewhere in a cave.  At the thought, she looked up, and there were stalactites hanging from the ceiling and more carved stars between them, giving off a faint pink and blue glow, almost like stained glass.

While she was looking up, the woman crept up behind her and pressed a light kiss to her neck, resting her head on her shoulder.  “What do you think?”

“It’s wonderful.”  Luisa turned to face her.  “How long has this been here?”

“Not long,” the woman admitted.  “I can direct my tunnels wherever I want, and no one notices a fox bathing in a spring or off a riverbank.  But while we’re hiding, you don’t have that option.  I needed something that worked for you.”  Her eyes widened as they searched Luisa’s.  “And it does?”

Luisa leaned forward and brushed her nose against her fox’s.  ‘It does.  More than enough.”  Then she heaved a sigh and turned back, looking around the room.  “How long do you mean for me to stay here?”

“Only the weekend,” the woman said, “but longer than that, should your father die.  One fox cannot enter another’s den.  This would be the safest place for you.”

Luisa shook her head.  “I can’t live here forever.”

“You would rather confront the fox who ate your stepmother’s heart?”

“I don’t know.”  Luisa looked up again.  “Is there a way to do that?  For me to kill her?”

The woman pressed her lips together then gave a solemn nod.  “But we can discuss that once your father returns, _however_ he returns.”  She took Luisa’s hand and led her back into the main room of her den, sitting her down on the edge of the bed.  “Stay here, and I will make us some tea.”

Luisa nodded, and as the woman went about taking over the part that Luisa normally held, she found her fingers fidgeting together, restless.  There was nothing she could do for her father and nothing for her to do here.  She drew her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.  She glanced over to where the tunnel led back to her hovel, only to find there was nothing there at all!

“Do you plan on not letting me escape?” she asked, head resting atop her knees.

“What do you mean?”

“The tunnel.”

“If we aren’t planning on leaving, then there is no reason to keep it open.  An opening leaves a foothold for someone else to enter or even to see, and I don’t want to take that risk.”  The woman turned to look at Luisa.  “Does that bother you?”

“No,” Luisa said, but it was a lie.  There was something uncomfortable about being stuck somewhere she could not leave with a creature who had already admitted to eating human hearts, even if it had been years since she had done so.  Maybe there was simply something uncomfortable about not having the choice to leave.

As she waited, Luisa found herself curling back on the bed, burying herself beneath blankets and resting her head on one of the pillows.  She didn’t really want tea (or biscuits made with honey, not that the woman was baking those yet).  She wanted her father, who she wasn’t sure she would ever see alive again, and she wanted her mother, who she knew she would not.  The blankets, at least, were silken soft, although of a different feel than the fox’s fur, and the pillows were just as plush as she’d imagined them to be.  She was too anxious to doze or even to close her eyes, other than to blink, and she wasn’t sure if the worry for herself and her father was greater than her desire to not move.  Eventually, she covered her head with one of the blankets, not even wanting to see the den which had seemed so wonderful only moments before.

Then Luisa felt a warm weight climb up onto the bed next to her, and she poked her head out from beneath the covers, starting to say, “I’m not really in the mood for,” only to stop when she saw that what was next to her was the fox and not the human form she sometimes wore.

“Tea?” the fox completed for her.  “I guessed as much.”

“No, I meant—”  Then Luisa shook her head, not sure how to put it into words.  “I thought you were still human.”

The fox grinned.  “When like this, your kind tends to do better with a soft, furry animal than intimate relations.”

Luisa wasn’t sure what to say to that.  She moved one hand out from under the blankets and reached out, then paused.  “Am I still worthy?”

The fox laughed.  “You’re in my bed, and I’ve made you tea.  _Worthy_ is the least of your concerns.”  She nudged her head against Luisa’s outstretched palm, and as Luisa’s fingers started to work their way through her fur, she arched her back like a cat might and rubbed underneath her hand.  Then she curled up against Luisa’s stomach and rested her head on her paws.

Luisa curled tighter around her fox and kissed her forehead gently.  “Thank you.”

The fox just nodded and closed her eyes, and Luisa took that as her cue to do the same.

For hours, they lay together like that, and when Luisa moved in her sleep, the fox woke and moved to find a more comfortable spot next to her.  Sometimes Luisa felt her curl up against her back or in the crook behind her knees, but when she could, the fox readjusted herself and returned against Luisa’s stomach.  It was only when the fox _didn’t_ move and instead began to yip in her sleep, one leg kicking into Luisa’s, that Luisa opened her eyes and woke up at all.

Luisa saw that her fox was stretched out next to her, paws as far apart as could be, tail tucked between her back legs, her eyes shut tight.  The fox yipped again, paws moving as though running from something, and then she lay still, tail still hidden, ears pressed back against her head, shivering.  Without considering it, Luisa brushed her fingers across the top of the fox’s head.  “It’s okay,” she whispered, scratching behind one ear.  “You’re alright.”  Her fingers traced along the fox’s jaw, massaging the fur on her throat.  “It’s just a nightmare.  You’re going to be okay.”

The fox seemed to calm down, her shaking stopping, but Luisa continued to work her fingers through her soft fur.  Eventually, she began to rub her fingers along the even softer fur covering the fox’s stomach.  The fox turned in her sleep until her stomach was completely exposed, legs sticking up in the air.  At the encouragement, Luisa’s fingers pressed deeper into the fur until they touched on a thin, matted line.  Confused, she traced the line to a hollow at the base of the fox’s neck and then back down almost to her tail, but as she followed the line, the fox grew cold and gave a great shiver.  Luisa brushed through the fox’s soft fur again, but the fox flipped to the side, covering her nose with one paw.

When Luisa moved her hand to start along her side, the fox’s eyes startled open, and she bared her teeth with a fierce growl!  Startled, Luisa shuffled back against the den wall.  The fox turned her head this way and that and jumped to her feet, her pointed teeth flashing and her blue bright eyes glazed with clouds.  Then she focused her gaze on Luisa.  The fur that stood on end flattened back down, and the snarl deep between her teeth faded away.  As she calmed, she crept forward, ears back against her skull, and nudged Luisa with her cold, wet nose.  Luisa reached out again and ran her thumb up the fox’s snout, and the fox moved forward so that her hand brushed along the top of her head, just between her ears.

“I’m sorry if I scared you.”

Luisa didn’t say anything at first, focused on scratching behind the fox’s left ear.  ‘I forget, sometimes, that you are still a fox, no matter how much I might want you to be human.”

The fox lifted one hind leg to scratch at her ear then stopped at Luisa’s words.  “I forget, too.”  She moved from under Luisa’s hand then shifted to sit next to her.  “It’s been so long since I’ve been in this form that I think it feels like it has to reassert itself as my true form.”

“When I’ve kept your secret, when you change—”

“—if—”

“— _when_ ,” Luisa brought her knees up against her chest once more, wrapping her arms around them and laying her head atop, tilted to one side so that she could look at her little fox, “do you think it’ll still reassert itself every now and again?”

The fox didn’t say anything for a few moments.  “I don’t know,” she said, finally.  “I haven’t known a fox who successfully accomplished the change who didn’t keep some of their feral nature to them, but then _they_ all ate hearts.”

“And those who had their promises kept?”

This time, the fox shook her head.  “I don’t know of any like that.”  She leaned back on her haunches.  “I knew some who _tried_ , but they were still waiting when whomever I trusted failed, and after another thousand years…so many of them disappeared.”  Her eyes widened.  “I don’t know if they were successful or if they were killed or if they ended up like me….”  Her body gave another great shiver.  “I don’t know how I’ve lived long enough to make it to this point so many times,” she said with a little laugh.  “I must be a very good little fox.”

“You are,” Luisa said, running her hand through the fox’s fur again.  “You are the best fox I have ever known.”

“But will I make a good human?” the fox asked.  “Will what has made me a good fox make for a good human?  Or will I still feel as though I’m in the wrong form?  Will I regret it?”

Luisa shook her head.  “You will be a beautiful human just as you are a beautiful fox, and I’ll be waiting for you after you’ve changed, just as you’ve always watched and waited for me.”  She scratched her fox’s head.  “Surely you won’t regret something you’ve wanted for so long.”

The fox fell silent at that, instead craning her head up for Luisa’s fingers to scratch a better spot.  Luisa just laughed and moved to scratching her neck instead.  The fox gave a rumbling sort of sigh, not quite unlike a cat’s purr, though not nearly as strong or consistent.

The rest of the weekend was spent in much the same way, although much more relaxed.  Luisa didn’t spend the _entire_ time in the fox’s bed but took time to make use of the extensive bath the fox made just for her (and it was just as wonderful as she imagined).  Often when she came out of the new room, the fox had food waiting for her – a variety of things besides biscuits and honey and rose petal tea because humans (and foxes) needed more than that to live on – taking advantage of the time Luisa was bathing to return to human form to cook.  But she was always back in her fox form before Luisa returned.

Once, Luisa came out of the bath a little too early and saw her fox, already transformed, looking at the pillows on the bed with her head tilted curiously to one side.  Then her fox leaped into the air and pounced on one of the pillows!  She started digging her little paws into it then jumped again!  This time, she went backwards and buried her nose under the blankets.  She growled and took an edge of the blanket in her teeth and pulled backward, twisting her head back and forth with another growl.

Luisa laughed!

Immediately, her fox dropped the edge of the blanket and looked up with wide blue eyes.  If a fox could blush, Luisa was certain that’s what her fox would be doing.  She looked so ashamed!  And Luisa couldn’t help it; she laughed more!  As she did, the fox lowered her head and covered her nose with one paw.

When she could finally calm her laughter, Luisa went over to the bed, where her fox had buried her face, and brushed her hand along her back.  “Why are you hiding?”

“Because you saw me, and I was ashamed.”

“Why were you ashamed?” Luisa asked, trying to scratch the spot along her fox’s neck that she knew she liked best.  “I thought you were adorable.”

“You laughed at me.”

“Because you were _cute_.”  Luisa leaned down and kissed her fox’s forehead.  “I’ve never seen you like that before!”

The fox pulled away from her and curled up on the other end of the bed.  “I don’t want you to see me like that.”

“Why not?” Luisa asked, scooting closer to her fox.

“Seeing something like that, how could you possibly see me as anything other than a fox?”

Luisa reached over and scratched the spot just between her fox’s ears.  “Go change,” she said, voice soft.  “You’ve spent all this time comforting me and helping me forget about my father, and I’ve forgotten that you don’t want to be like this.”  She kissed her fox’s forehead again.  “Get something comfortable, and go change.”

The fox did so, or as much as she was able to do, but when Luisa realized the fox could not carry her clothes the way she was, she took what was pointed out for her and placed them in the adjoining room so that they were within reach.  While she was out of the room, Luisa went to the cupboards, finding all sorts of food, but choosing instead to make something she knew the woman would like, and when the woman returned, her long red hair dripping wet along the back of her shirt, a plate of biscuits and honey waited her on the stool next to a little pot of rose petal tea.  Luisa sat on the bed and patted the blanket next to her.  “Come here.”

The woman glanced down to the biscuits and tea but passed them by, sitting next to Luisa, and Luisa wrapped an arm around her, letting her head rest against her chest.  She pressed another kiss to her forehead.  “Better?”

“Yes.  A little bit.”  The woman shivered from the cold and pulled the blankets up around her.  “I forget, sometimes, how cold this form can be.”

“No fur.”

“No.”  She shivered again, curling up a little closer to Luisa.  “And your clothes are not adequate in comparison.”

“No, I suppose they’re not.”

Luisa began to brush one hand absentmindedly through the woman’s hair, gently massaging her scalp.  The woman hummed softly and lifted her head, pressing her nose, which, despite her physical change, still felt cold to the touch, to the spot just where Luisa’s jaw and neck met.  Luisa froze, as she did the first time, and the woman shifted against her, leaning upwards to brush her nose against Luisa’s.  The cold made her lips part, and the woman leaned forward.

The kiss was soft.  Gentle.  If Luisa had to describe it afterwards, that’s all she would be able to say, and that the world smelled overwhelmingly of roses and cinnamon and honey.  She knew that she smiled, and that her nose felt warm as it brushed back against the woman’s own, and that the woman stopped shivering as they curled up under the blankets together, her grin not a bit foxlike as she hid her head along the curve of Luisa’s neck.

* * *

 

There wasn’t much left to the weekend, but at Luisa’s request, the woman remained as a woman the rest of their time there, only choosing to return to her fox form when Luisa seemed most in need of something fluffy to cuddle – mostly when Luisa, herself, appeared to be having a nightmare.  They cooked together – the woman showing Luisa new recipes with the ingredients she kept in her cabinets and Luisa bumping up against her or wrapping her arms around the woman’s waist and burying her head between her shoulder blades.  When they finally left the den, the woman opening a tunnel back into Luisa’s hovel, they decided to leave their suitcases there instead of taking them back with them.  Luisa held tight to the woman’s hand as they walked, but that didn’t stop the gnawing sensation that grew in her stomach the closer they got to her father’s mansion.  She wanted to turn back, desperately, as though staying in hiding would mean that her father could continue to live, as though not hearing the news at all would make his death stop being true—

Even without it having been said, Luisa could see no other outcome.

When they returned to her father’s mansion, it was surrounded with cars.  Luisa squeezed the woman’s hand then pushed through the throng, taking the woman with her.  Two strangers stood just inside the entryway, discussing with one of their servants, and Luisa stopped in front of them.  As soon as they were close, the woman’s fingernails dug into Luisa’s hand, and without saying anything, she knew that the woman could smell the fox who ate her mother and stepmother.

“Who are you?” she asked, voice firm.  Her eyes moved from one detective to the other – one a lanky blonde woman with dark brown eyes whom she might once have considered attractive and one a man who stood half-hunched over with his hands stuck in his back pockets, his eyes an equally dark, muddy color.  “And why are you here?”

“Your father went missing late Friday night,” the blonde said, “and was found Saturday evening with his heart ripped out.”

“We’re the detectives on the case.”  The man reached forward as though to touch Luisa’s arm, but the redheaded woman stepped deftly in the way, blocking him.  “We came here as soon as we heard to see if anyone here knew anything, but you and your father’s—”  He hesitated, unsure how to label the other woman in front of him.

“ _Friend_ ,” the redhead said, eyes flicking from the man to the blonde detective and back again.  “I was his friend.”

“That isn’t what I heard,” the blonde detective said.  “Heard you were a little bit _more_ than that.”  Her head tilted as she glanced down to a notebook in her hand.  “I also heard the two of you were _out_ for the weekend.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Luisa said.  “We were together.  Bonding.  While my father,” and here her throat choked up, but she tried to push on, to swallow past the lump in her throat, “while my father,” but it didn’t seem to work, and she swallowed again, harder this time, “ _while my father_ —” and here her voice was so thin it might as well have squeaked, and she shook her head, teeth tugging on her lower lip.

“—while her father was on his men’s hunting trip, we thought we women could have a trip of our own,” the redhead continued for her, voice soft.  “Is there something wrong with that?”

“Only that it means you don’t have a solid alibi for his death.”  The man rocked back on his heels and shrugged.

Luisa’s eyes widened.  “We were together!  How is that not an alibi?”

“What he means,” the blonde woman said, and this time she pushed forward, placed her hand on Luisa’s arm, and led her away from the other two, “is that this would be a lot easier if there was a third person who could verify where you were.  Can you think of anything or anyone else who might have seen the two of you together?”

“No.”  Luisa glanced back to where the redheaded woman stood silently watching her with blue bright eyes, barely noticing how the man did the same.  Then she shook her head.  “There were people in the town who stopped and talked to us on our way out of town, but—”

“No horses or carriages?”

Luisa shook her head again.  “We wanted to enjoy the nice spring air after the time we’d spent indoors.  It seemed nice and warm, so we walked.”

“And you walked back?”

“Yes.”  Luisa glanced back to the redhead woman then turned back to the blonde.  “Can we have this discussion another time?  You’ve just told me my father’s died, and I need…I need to process….”  Her throat closed up again, and she swallowed past it.  “I need to process it.  Please.”

“You don’t want to find the murderer as soon as possible?”

Luisa’s eyes narrowed into a thinly concealed glare.  “Neither of us killed my father.  We were together, out of town.  Whatever you’re looking for, you won’t find it here.”  Then she walked back and grabbed the redhead’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.  “If you need either of us, you can come back tomorrow.  Until then, leave me to my mourning.”

The female detective nodded once then met the male detective’s dark eyes.  His eyebrows raised, and then he rocked back on one heel and turned toward the door.  She followed him out, and Luisa shut the door behind them.  Then she and the other woman walked upstairs.  It was only there, in her room, with the door closed and locked shut behind them, that she turned to her with her arms crossed.

“How do I kill her?” Luisa asked immediately, as soon as she felt they were alone and safe, her voice firm through the hush.  “How do I kill that fox?”

Her own fox woman stood with her arms crossed, head lowered.  “What did you tell the detective?”

“Nothing important.”  Luisa turned away, gripping her hands together, and began to pace.  At least, she hadn’t thought she’d said anything important.  She’d been more concerned with getting away, with having _this_ discussion about what they needed to do next – what _she_ needed to do next.  “Does it matter?”

“What did you say?”

“Only that we went out for the weekend, that it was just us, no one else, not even horses or a carriage,” and here Luisa paused as the woman’s blue bright eyes widened, “but I told her it was so nice and sunny that we _wanted_ to walk!  And that lots of people saw us walking out!”

“That might not have been enough.”  The woman tapped a finger to her lips.  “Even if they can’t prove that one of us killed your father, they might know enough to guess the truth of me.  The police here are particularly knowledgeable of the workings of foxes.”  She shook her head.  “The fox you want to kill won’t be able to bring the horses or dogs herself, but the other one might.”

“Then you have to leave.”

“Running is as good as admitting I did it.  I wouldn’t be able to show my face again until they could prove without a shadow of doubt who killed your father.”

“And she’d never admit that,” Luisa said, turning away again.

“No.”

Luisa flopped down on the end of her bed, hands flat against the mattress.  “So what do we do?”

The woman looked up, eyes meeting Luisa’s.  “You kill the fox.”

“How do I do that?” Luisa asked again, unable to hide the frustration in her voice.

“Not here,” the woman said, sitting on the bed next to Luisa.  She took Luisa’s hands in her own, never dropping her gaze.  “We must return somewhere safe to plan.  There are too many ears here.”

Luisa nodded in understanding.  “When?”

“Soon.”  The woman squeezed her hand.  “For now, let us stay here.  To do otherwise would be to alert them that something is wrong, more than my scent will have already done.”  She shook her head once.  “My being here may have caused more trouble than it was worth.”

“I wanted you here.  To protect my father.”

“You knew he would die.”

“If you were not here, she likely would have eaten me the first chance she had.”  Luisa cupped the woman’s face with one hand.  “You are the reason I’m still alive.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, I don’t.  But I believe it, and that is enough for me.”

* * *

 

As soon as the sun lowered beyond the horizon, the woman took Luisa’s hand in her own and gave it another gentle squeeze.  “We must go now,” she said, her voice soft.  “We must go now, and we must go quickly, or they will catch us and keep us here.”

Luisa listened to the intensity in the woman’s voice and saw the spark in the bright of her eyes and obeyed her without question.

This time, instead of Luisa leading her into the building, the woman led her out of it, hiding behind pillars and in rooms and closets as needed to get past the few servants who were still awake and working.  The hardest part was when they made it outside of the mansion.  The woman needed enough room and time to open a tunnel into her den, and while she was doing so, hunting dogs, which Luisa knew once belonged to her father, came rushing after them!  She stood between the woman and the dogs, and just before the dogs could get to her, the woman dragged her into the tunnel.  Luisa passed her by, falling backwards down into the den, and the woman held her hand up, barely getting the tunnel closed behind them before joining her in the den.  They both landed directly on the woman’s bed of blankets and pillows.  Luisa didn’t have time to move out of the woman’s way, so she fell onto her with a whoof!  The woman immediately moved off of her and brushed one hand along her face, eyes searching for any sign of something wrong.

“I’m okay,” Luisa said, pushing herself back up.  “I’m okay.”

“Good.”

They moved to sitting next to each other on the woman’s bed almost the same way as they had only a few hours earlier on Luisa’s.

“What must I do to kill the fox?” Luisa asked a third time, her dirt-covered hands placed in her lap.  “What must I do to rid myself of the fox who killed my mother, the fox who returned to kill my father and me?”

The woman took a deep breath.  “You must trust me and do exactly as I say, with no deviations,” she said, and one hand reached over to take one of Luisa’s in her own.  “I will get you through this, and then you will be rid of that evil woman.”

“I trust you completely,” Luisa replied.  “I will do whatever you say.”

“To protect yourself, the first thing you must do is have your heart removed.”  The woman squeezed Luisa’s hand as a comfort to her.  “If you don’t, that woman will overcome you, and you will die.”

“How must I do this?”

“I know a witch, deep in a forbidden wood, whose magic allows her to remove a person’s heart without it harming them.  You must go to her, have it removed, and bring it back here to me, so that I may protect it while you go after the fox who killed your father and stepmother.”

Luisa didn’t know how to ask, didn’t know how to word it, but forced herself to say it anyway.  “How many more hearts did you need to become human?”

“One.”

“ _I trust you completely_ ,” Luisa repeated, steeling herself to it.  “And if I’m not able to succeed, then you must eat my heart and become human yourself.”  She looked up, eyes meeting the woman’s.  “I would rather it be you than her.”

“If you obey me, then you will not need to worry.”

Luisa nodded once.  “What happens next?”

“You must convince the woman to take on her fox form or trick her into it.  Her tattoo will be the same as it was before, with her nose between her shoulder blades.  Press it and she will change just as she did before.  Shove a sharp object through her snout to keep her in place, and then….”  The woman hesitated, taking a deep breath.  “When I was a fox and you ran your hands along my stomach, you found a deep, matted line.”

“Yes,” Luisa said.  “You were asleep.”

“But I still felt it.”  The woman refused to speak on that further, her body shaking once, and continued on as she had.  “You must take a knife or sharp object and slit along that line.  All of the hearts she has eaten will tumble out whole, with your father’s on top.  Show that to the detective, along with her knowledge – a little rock that will sit at the base of her tongue – and they will have no choice but to believe you.”

“Her knowledge?” Luisa asked.  “What is that?”

The woman smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile.  “It’s a small rock full of all we have learned in our years of life.  It contains our memories and those of the people whose hearts we have eaten, even the memories we can’t access as pure foxes, so that we can reach them when we have need.  If you hold it in your hand, you will be able to shift through our memories and see through our eyes.”

“I will be able to see my father’s last memories.”

“Yes.”

“Or my mother’s.”

The woman fell silent then and squeezed Luisa’s hand once more.  “You will need to pull this out yourself, so you may see many things.  Do not get lost in her memories, or you will be as good as dead.”

“I won’t get lost.”

“I know you won’t.”  The woman kissed Luisa’s forehead.  “For now, we rest.  You will need all your strength for what you will need to do tomorrow.”

Luisa curled up on the bed, and instead of staying in her human form, the woman shifted into her fox form, kicked her now useless clothes off the bed, and tucked herself right against Luisa’s stomach.  After a few moments, she stretched out on one side, and Luisa began to run her hand through her soft fur.  Without thinking about it, her fingers found the matted line along the fox’s stomach again.  The fox flinched as she traced it, and a low whine crept from the back of her throat.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” the fox whispered, voice haggard.  “You need to know where it is.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It isn’t painful.”  The fox shook again as Luisa continued to trace the line.  “It makes me afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of everything I’ve never wanted coming back to haunt me.”  The fox was hushed and tired.  “Will you be able to find it when you go to kill her?” she asked after a few more minutes, still shivering, trying not to whine again.

“Yes.”  Luisa moved her fingers away from the matted line and rubbed gentle along the rest of the fox’s stomach, away from the line.  She kissed her forehead and pressed her nose into her fur.  “Thank you.  I won’t do that again.”

The fox nodded but didn’t say anything and didn’t stop shivering, no matter how much Luisa ran her fingers through her fur or how close she curled up next to her.  She was still shivering as Luisa fell asleep, unable to calm herself down.

* * *

 

The next morning, the fox pressed her nose against one of the walls, and a tunnel appeared, much as they did when she pressed a hand against them in her human form.  She led Luisa outside of her den and nodded to the path in front of her.  “This will lead you directly to the witch.  Tell her what you need, and she will take care of you.  Do not be distracted by anything else along the path, to the right or to the left, and come directly back to me once she is done.”

Luisa nodded and started down the path.  She turned back once and saw her fox sitting at the entrance to her den, blue bright eyes watching her, tail flicking back and forth.  Then she turned forward and continued down the path.  It twisted and turned until she could no longer see the little fox sitting behind her when she tried to look.  It was wide at first and then grew thinner as it drew into a thick forest filled with fog.  Luisa drew her sweater closer about her and forced herself forward.  The leaves crunched under her feet.  Every now and again, there would be a sharp _snap_ from the forest around her, but she refused to look either left or right, listening to her fox’s counsel and pressing onward.

At the end of the path was a little cottage built of stone with a thatched roof.  Seeing nothing else around, save for a pit where the witch might, at some point, have a fire, Luisa raised a hand and knocked on the wooden door.

“It’s open!” came a voice from inside, and Luisa took hold of the handle and pushed the door open.

Inside, it was much the same as the outside, although much nicer than Luisa had thought a witch’s house would look.  Clean, white and tan stones made the outer walls, light shone through large windows, and a fireplace sat in one of the rooms, roaring and warm.  But none of these first rooms held the witch that Luisa sought, and she continued further in until she reached the kitchen.  There a woman stood just in front of an oven, shutting it tight and brushing her hands against her apron before turning around to face her.  The woman – the witch! – had short black hair, dark eyes, and a charming, bright red smile.

“Apple pie,” the witch said, gesturing to the oven, and as soon as she said it, Luisa could smell the hints of cinnamon and apple cooking.  “My specialty.”  She nodded toward Luisa.  “What are you here for?”

Luisa wasn’t sure how to explain, but she tried to say it as plainly as her fox told her.  “I plan to slay the fox who killed my parents,” she said, “and I need my heart removed so that someone else may protect it for me.”

“Ah,” the witch said with a great nod.  “And you have someone who will protect this heart for you?  Or are you planning to just leave it here and come back when you’re done?”

“I have someone who will watch it for me.”

“Not another fox, I should hope,” the witch said as she turned away from Luisa, moving around her great island before coming across the kitchen toward her.

“Of course not,” Luisa lied immediately.  “Why do you say that?”

“It would be a shame for you to be caught between two foxes fighting over territory.”  The witch paused and waved one hand in the air.  “You wouldn’t be the first.  In fact, the only people who _ever_ come to see me are broken-hearted hopeless romantics who think removing their hearts will make the pain go away – _it won’t_ – and those sent by one fox to slay another.”  She hummed to herself.  “You’ve got a fox who killed your parents and someone to watch your heart on standby; you _could_ be _either_.”  Fingernails rapped against her countertop.  “So which _are_ you?”

“N-n-neither.”  Luisa couldn’t keep the stutter out of her voice.  “Why would foxes have people like us – _like me_ ,” she corrected, not wanting to offend the dark-haired witch watching her with an equally dark smile, “fight other foxes for them?  They’re more powerful and cunning than we are.  Why not fight each other themselves?”

“Why put yourself in danger when you can send a pawn in your place?”  The witch cackled.  “Wouldn’t you send someone else to kill this fox who has plagued you and keep yourself safe?”  She leaned forward.  “A prince?”  Then she took in Luisa’s appearance and raised one sculpted brow.  “Or a princ _ess_?”

“Neither.”  Luisa didn’t hesitate as she spoke, and she stepped back.  “Not that I don’t like women – _I love women_ – don’t get me wrong.  Women are amazing.  _Love them._ ”  She held a hand up, stopping herself there.  “Not interested _right now_ , but **hm** , you, _hm_ ,” and she shook her head again, trying to push it out so that she didn’t think about it, “I wouldn’t want to send someone else into danger when I can take care of it myself.”

“Reckless.”  The witch grinned.  “I love it.”  She stepped forward and held her hand just in front of Luisa’s chest.  “Let me just—”  And without a second pause, the witch pushed her hand into the center of Luisa’s chest!

Luisa gasped, but the moment was gone almost as soon as it started.  The witch stepped back, and there was Luisa’s heart, beating in her hand.  Luisa ran her fingers over her chest, over the blouse she was wearing.  There was no blood, nothing to suggest her heart had been removed at all.  “Do I have to come back to you to have it put back in after, or—”

“No, no, no, no,” the witch waved her hand again in a dismissive gesture.  “ _Anyone_ can put it back in, but _only I_ can take it out.”  She paused with Luisa’s heart held over a thin wooden box.  “Well.  There are others.  But they aren’t _pleasant_.”  Then she placed Luisa’s heart in the box, closed the lid, and handed it to her.  “There.  _All done._ ”

“Thank you.  I should be—”

But the witch placed her hand on the center of Luisa’s chest again, and Luisa froze, her eyes wide, uncertain of what was going on.  The witch stepped forward.  “Make sure that you know what you are doing.  Your heart’s a little _weak_.  It won’t stand this sort of procedure again.  Kill the fox you want to kill the first time.”

“I will.”

“Good.”  The witch stepped back.  “And come back when you’re done.  I’ll make you something much better than whatever _your_ princess is doing.”

“I don’t.  I don’t have a.  _I don’t have a princess—_ ”

The witch grinned.  “I held your heart in my hand.  _Yes_ , you do.  Don’t lie to me because you aren’t doing a great job lying to yourself.”

Luisa left the witch’s little cottage and made her way back down the path.  It wasn’t as fearful this time, but her walk felt much slower.  Her fox hadn’t mentioned anything of territories, and the only reason she thought a fox might have one of those would be for feeding.  But her fox didn’t even _eat_ people anymore.  She’d told her that much.

_Maybe she was lying._

The words came in a whisper as though from someone else in the wood, but when Luisa turned around to look, there was no one else there.  She shivered and kept walking.  Her fox wasn’t lying.  They’d spent a lot of time together, and she’d never once seen her eat anyone.

_Maybe she ate them while you weren’t around._

Luisa turned to look again, but again, there was no one there.  She started to walk a bit faster.  It wasn’t as though there was any way for her to _know_ whether her fox was lying to her or not.  She either had to believe her, or she didn’t.  And right now, she saw no reason to doubt her.  The fox had ample opportunities to eat _her_ and never had.  So she would believe her.  She had to.  She—

_You could take her rock of knowledge._

“And how would I do that?” Luisa said aloud, turning on her heel, and saw a shadowy figure who stood just off of the path.  She wanted to step forward to speak with them, but her fox told her not to stray from the path so she didn’t move further.  “How do I take her rock?”

_A kiss._

The words came out hushed, long, extended, like the hiss of a serpent, and Luisa stepped forward, just to the edge of the path.  “We’ve done that, and it obviously didn’t work.”  Then she hesitated before asking, “Is there another way?”

 _Rougher, rougher._   The voice sounded annoyed.  _You’re too gentle._

Luisa’s eyes narrowed, and she stepped back onto the path, shaking her head.  Why was she listening to a mysterious shadow figure in the middle of a foggy wood?  Her fox told her to stay on the path and not to listen to anyone, to go to the witch and then to come directly back.  She shook her head again and looked down at the path below her feet, and no matter what she heard, she kept moving forward, holding on tight to the little wooden box where her heart now lay.  As the voice continued to hound her, she walked faster and faster, until she tripped and fell forward with a loud cry!

Luisa tumbled forward, deeper and deeper, and then landed with a plop, the box with her heart in it held aloft the same way she’d once held her cherished bottle of drink, so that it wouldn’t be harmed.  As she looked around, she found she’d just fallen through the tunnel back into her fox’s den.  She took a deep, deep breath, trying to calm—

There was no rapid beating in her chest.

There was no rapid beating in her _box_.

What was she trying to calm?

Luisa slowly sat up until her feet were flat on the earthen ground.  She scanned the room for any sign of her fox and, for once, saw nothing.  She was nowhere to be seen.  Then she took another deep breath and opened her little box.

Inside was her heart.

Luisa didn’t know what she expected.  Maybe something a little more bloody, something that pulsed or quivered or _beat_ , but it looked just like any other organ her father or one of his servants might have cooked.  It didn’t tremble or shake beneath the weight of her stare but just sat there, flat.  The inside of the box was much more plush than she’d thought, covered with a scarlet fabric and padded all along its walls.  She reached her hand inside and just touched her heart, ran her finger along its skin, and the center of her chest ached with not pain or fear but something much  more akin to sorrow.

“So you got it.”

Luisa shut the box with a sudden bang as she sat upright.  Her eyes met the redheaded woman’s, and the lack of the pounding that should be in her ears only reminded her of what lay in the box on her lap.  “Yes,” she said, looking back down at the box.  “It’s out.  I had it, and now I have it, and now it’s in the box, and I’m not scared, but it’s a _weird_ feeling and I don’t think I like it.”

The fox had returned to her human form while Luisa was away, and she sat on the bed next to Luisa, rubbing one hand along her back.  “It’s safer this way.”

“Is it?”

The woman blinked but didn’t say anything to alleviate Luisa’s fears.

“There was…the witch said something about humans being used for…for fox territories and there was a figure in the forest—”

“Did you step off the path?”

“No.”  Luisa shook her head, eyes wide.  “No, I didn’t, but I stopped, and I listened, and it said some really strange things.”

The woman nodded once.  “Did any of it make sense?”

“I don’t know.”  Luisa held tight to her box as the thoughts ran through her head, and she shook her head again as though to shake them out.  She could think about all of that later.  Maybe her fox was dangerous, but if she was, it certainly wasn’t to _her_.  There were too many times the fox could have hurt her before now and had done nothing but help her.  As for that other beast, what did it matter if it were a problem of territories?  She still killed and ate her mother and father, and Luisa still wanted her dead.  That would be her payment.

Before the doubt could take further root, Luisa passed the box to the woman next to her.  “Here.  Your payment for protecting my father.”

The woman’s gaze dropped to the box in her lap, but her hands did not move to touch it.  “We agreed that you would not pay me if he were killed.”

“Then it is your payment for helping me kill the fox who killed my parents.”

“I can’t take this.”

“Then what payment would you require?”  Luisa turned to face the woman, eyes searching her face.  “You have _always_ asked for payment for every good you have done for me, and you have paid me with your secret for helping you during the fireworks.  You must want something great for this.”

This time, again, the woman fell silent, gaze still focused on the box in her lap.  “I wouldn’t ask for this.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I will tell you once you have returned, once you have killed the woman who ate your father’s heart.”

But the redheaded woman still didn’t glance up.  She was gentle as she grasped the box in her lap, and she stood, hiding it in her cabinet behind her food.  “You must stay with me again,” she said, her voice soft, “so that you can regain your strength.”

“I have enough strength,” Luisa said.  “That fox is searching for me, and I’m hiding here with you, and I want all this to be done.”

The woman sat next to her on the bed once more and cupped Luisa’s cheek, turning her face directly towards hers.  “Right now, you are heartless.  You are angry and confused.  You have spent the day in the forest with a witch and a figure who have tried to convince you that what you are doing is somehow wrong.  You want to leave so that you may prove yourself right by killing this woman, so that you can avoid your own doubts.”  She brushed Luisa’s hair behind her ear.  “You are resolved not because you are right but because you are afraid you might be wrong, because you think if you sit here too long you will change your mind.”

“What should it matter why I kill her?” Luisa asked.  “She has killed many, many people.  All she needs is me, and only because she has chosen me with her foolishness, instead of murdering someone else at random.  Even if my reasons are wrong, to kill her is right.”

“I, too, only need one heart,” the woman said, her voice soft.  “You have given me that, and it is only my resolve that prevents me from changing now.  I, too, have killed many, many people, and only because I have chosen, in my foolishness, to trust you instead of eating you—”

“You are different.”

“No, I’m not.  You want me to be different because you like me, but that does not make it so.”  The woman’s voice continued to be soft, insistent, even as Luisa’s eyes dropped to her lap.  “You cannot look at me and only see what it is you want.  You must see the whole of me, or to have what you believe in broken will destroy you.”  Her hand dropped to grip Luisa’s shoulder.  “You must regain your strength.”

Then, finally, Luisa understood.  “My strength in who I believe you to be.”

“No.”  The woman shook her head.  “Your strength in knowing who and what I am.”

Luisa glanced up, and she pressed a kiss to the woman’s forehead.  “You have taken care of me my entire life.  You have been good to me, and I trust you completely.”

The woman leaned forward and hid her face in the crook of Luisa’s neck.  “Stay here with me, one more time, before you leave to kill that woman.  I do not want to be alone.”

Luisa ran a hand through the woman’s bright red hair, massaging her fingers along her head.  “I love you,” she murmured, voice soft, “and I will not leave you alone.  Once she is dead, I will be free of her, and I can stay here, with you, for as long as you want.  And when you change—”

“Stop,” the woman whispered.  “You still do not know what payment I require.”

“No,” Luisa said, “but I know that it will not hurt me too much.  You have always been very gentle with me and have never hurt me, and you won’t change that now.”

The woman did not say anything further, but she nodded, brushing her cold nose against the skin of Luisa’s neck.  For the first time, Luisa did not gasp or shiver at the cool of her touch.  Instead, she carefully tucked herself into the bed, the woman curling up against her, and it seemed to her that the person recovering their strength wasn’t herself but the redheaded woman lying next to her.

* * *

 

Despite everything, Luisa’s sleep was restless.  She kept waking up and trying to find another comfortable position, only to find that however she lay down, she couldn’t sleep long before finding herself waking up again.  Sometimes she would try and curl up closer to the woman, and sometimes she would pull away from her entirely, and eventually she rose out of the bed and tried to curl up on the floor only to find that _that_ didn’t particularly help either.  It wasn’t until she pulled out the box with her heart in it and dragged it into bed with her, placing the box between her pillow and the wall, that she was able to calm enough to finally remain asleep.

When she woke again, the box was gone, and the woman was, too.  Luisa turned in bed to face the rest of the room, and although the woman was still gone, there was a steaming cup of rose petal tea on the stool just next to the bed and a plate of lavender biscuits still warm from the oven with honey just beside it.  She sat on the edge of the bed, blanket drawn around her, and drank the tea, finding it more bitter than she remembered, and split a biscuit in half with her thumb, as she’d seen the woman do so long ago, pouring honey within it before eating it, finding it to be far _sweeter_ than she remembered.  Neither were satisfying, but they warmed her stomach and the hollow area in the center of her chest where her heart once was.  She glanced up as a tunnel appeared on the opposite end of the den, and she wondered, vaguely, if her eyes looked as cloudy as the fox’s sometimes were.

“You’re awake,” the woman said.  “Good.”

“Where have you been?”

“I have lured the woman who killed your father and stepmother to your father’s mansion, telling the detectives that you wish to meet them with information they will want for their investigation.”

“How did you do that?” Luisa asked.  “Didn’t they recognize your face?  Or your scent?  Wouldn’t they be looking for you, too?”

The woman grinned a foxlike grin, pointed teeth showing just at the top of her bottom lip.  “I wore a different face.  She might have been able to smell me, but there wasn’t anything she could do to stop me.”  She moved to sit next to Luisa.  “She will be waiting for you alone.  That way she can eat your heart and then pin your murder on me, should they ever find me again.”  Then she took Luisa’s hand in her own.  “She knows you will be ready for her, but do not worry.  She won’t know about this.”  She nodded to Luisa’s chest, where her heart once was.  “You should be safe.”

“Force her to change,” Luisa said, running through what the woman had told her before.  “Stab her in place.  Rip open the line.  Find her knowledge at the base of her tongue.  Show that to the other detective.”  She stopped then and looked up to the woman.  “Will he be waiting for me, when everything’s done?  Will he be coming to find us?”

“The other detective should show up.  That woman will want you to be found.”  The woman paused, then said, “It could be either of them.  Both reeked of fox scent, so I could not tell which was which.  But as long as you stick to the plan—”

“It won’t matter.  Whatever face she is wearing, she will die.  I’ll kill her, and I’ll come back safe.”  Luisa pressed a kiss to the woman’s cheek.  “Take me where I need to go.”

The woman closed the tunnel behind her, letting it fill itself in, and opened another on the other side of her den.  “I must fill in this tunnel, too, while you are gone.  I do not want her to try and take your heart or send someone else to enter my den.”

“Can she?” Luisa asked, surprised.  “Could she do that?”

“Yes,” the woman said.  “If she has convinced the other detective that I am a threat, they may be looking for an entrance as soon as you arrive.  Another fox cannot enter my den without my permission, but a human all too easily can.”  Her hand moved as though to cup Luisa’s cheek, then brushed through her hair instead.  “When you are finished, when you are done, return to the den you created and wait for me.  I will know when you have arrived.”  She took a deep breath and leaned forward as though to kiss her.  “Go now,” she said instead, voice haggard.  “Go quick.  Go _safe_.”

And Luisa did.

She crawled up through the tunnel and found herself just outside her father’s mansion.  For the first time, she did not turn back to look at the fox’s den as she left, and so she did not see the tunnel filling itself up.  As she walked to the mansion, she found a gardening spade waiting for her, along with a shovel and a pair of shears, and instead of moving into the mansion itself, she found the area in the backyard where she first followed her fox when she had only been a child.  She sat down in front of the rose bush with all its thorns to wait for the arrival of the other fox.

She did not have to wait very long.

Luisa was surprised, however, to see someone different than the woman she expected.

“You?” she asked, her eyes opening at the crunch of footsteps.

The male detective grinned a foxlike grin.  “What about me?” he asked.  But his teeth were pointed, and the tongue that flicked across his lips was thin and long.  “Let’s go inside,” he said, holding out a hand to help Luisa stand.  “I heard you had something you wanted to talk with me about.”

“With both of you,” Luisa corrected as she took the male detective’s hand and stood up.  “Is your partner here with you?”

“No.  She had another lead she wanted to track down.”  The detective shoved his hands in his pockets and started toward the mansion.  Luisa kept the shears hidden in her pocket and the spade in one hand as she followed him.  “But it should be fine with just the two of us.”

The house was empty.  Luisa knew she’d been gone only a couple of days, and yet without her or her father there, the mansion had gone vacant, and so it felt as though it had been much longer.  No servants.  No _nothing_ , other than the pictures hanging on the walls and furniture and—

The detective shut the door behind them and placed his hand on the small of Luisa’s back as he led her forward into the living room.  She moved away from him and sat down on one of the sofas while he sat on the one opposite her, drawing his other hand out of his pocket so that he could clasp his hands together in his lap.  “You’re here alone?” he asked, eyes glancing about the mansion.  “That other woman isn’t with you?”

Luisa shook her head.  “My father’s friend returned to her home.  You don’t truly need her here for what you want, do you?”  She glanced up, meeting the detective’s brown dark eyes.

“No, I don’t.”

All of a sudden, the detective reached forward, his hand contorting into a mixture of a human hand and a fox’s paw with sharp claws.  He pushed his clawed hand through the center of Luisa’s chest before she had a moment to recover!  She could feel the hand in the hollow where her heart once was, rummaging around until he pulled it back with a grimace, his hand dripping her blood.  “Where is it?”

“I….”  Luisa coughed, chest burning with pain.  “I….”

_Move!_

This time there was no yipping to bring her back to her senses, but Luisa gripped her shovel tight and a splinter from the wood dug into her palm.  She swung the shovel, and it hit the male detective across the side of his face.  He landed on the ground, and before he had a chance to recover, Luisa used the garden shears to rip through the back of his shirt.  She quickly pressed the nose between his shoulder blades, and he began to shift again, back into his true form as a fox.

The fox leapt to its paws, baring its teeth, and Luisa shoved the tip of the shovel through its skull, pegging it to the ground.

Luisa took a deep breath and watched as the fox continued to struggle to free itself.  Then she took the shears, noting the panic in the fox’s eyes, and tore along the line on its stomach, ripping it open so that every heart it had eaten fell out.  It was only then that the fox ceased to struggle, its brown dark eyes growing cloudy.  Then Luisa reached her hand into the top of the hole she’d torn into the fox’s stomach and pulled its knowledge from the base of its tongue.

She sat cross-legged on the now bloody sofa and closed her eyes, her breathing tired and haggard.  The hole in the center of her chest burned and throbbed, but it wasn’t as bad as she once might have thought.  Instead, she focused on the knowledge she now held in her hand, and as she did, a warmth filled her hands and an image of a dark-haired woman filled her mind.  She expected that this was how the fox imagined herself, that if she held her own fox’s knowledge she would see the redheaded woman with whom she’d spent so much time, but this one had long, dark hair and flashing brown eyes.

“I want to see my father,” Luisa said.

All at once, images of her father from the fox’s sight filled her mind, too many for her to go through at once.  She tried to focus, and when that did not help, she said, “I want to see the last memory of my father.”

And there it was, there before her, the image of the fox killing her father.  The female detective would be able to do with this well enough.  Luisa didn’t want to see it anymore.

But she had something else she wanted to see.

Luisa took a deep breath.

“I want to see my mother.”

The knowledge in her hand flickered bright and hot, rapid, until it pulled up one singular frame of reference.  As opposed to the memories of her father, Luisa pulled this one up full.  She was low to the ground, so the fox must have been in her animal form, barely looking through a thick green bush.  Luisa could see a woman she recognized as her mother walking with someone, but she couldn’t see clearly enough to see who that was.  Whoever it was walked on the other side of her mother, and there was a deep rumbling growl building in her throat – she could smell her, _she could smell_ —

Luisa jolted out of the memory as a hand landed on her shoulder, and she gasped at the sudden pain seizing in the center of her chest.  She looked down but it seemed that whatever magic allowed for the fox transformation also cauterized the edges of the hole.  Then she looked up to see the blonde detective standing above her, brown eyes wide as she stared at her.

“What happened here?”

“Your partner,” Luisa started, and her voice was rough, tired, “was a fox.”  She nodded to the husk of the fox pinned to the floor in front of her.  “My father’s heart is in those,” this time she nodded to the immense pile of hearts, “and this,” she held the knowledge up for the blonde woman to see, “is a container of the fox’s memories.  Close your eyes and ask for what you want to see, and it will show it to you.”

Except for her mother’s death.

The blonde detective took the knowledge from Luisa’s hand and pocketed it in her boxy gray jacket, her other hand resting on Luisa’s shoulder.  “I need to get you to a healer.”

“I _am_ a healer.”

“I don’t think you can fix that wound yourself.”

“A healer can’t either.  I need my heart back.”  Luisa tried to sit up.  It took a few tries, but eventually, with a deep breath, she made it into a standing position.  “I need you to take me outside of the city.”

“You _need_ to see a _healer_.  You’ve got a gaping hole in your chest!”

Luisa shook her head.  “My healer is outside of the city.  I can direct you to where I can find her, but then I will need you to leave.”  She looked up.  “Can you do that for me?”

“I can’t just let you die.”

“You aren’t.  You’re taking me to a healer and leaving me to be healed.  Anything that happens after that, you don’t know.”  Luisa grinned.  “Don’t worry.  Once I’ve made it, I’ll come see you.  I’ll live, and you’ll see me.”

Despite her misgivings, the blonde detective gave in.  She followed Luisa’s directions and took her just outside of the city, walking her near to her hovel but not so close as to see that it wasn’t a healer’s shack.  Luisa stepped away from the woman, thanked her, and then slowly made her way through the flowers and rose bushes to her little hovel, where she collapsed in the center of her floor.

Luisa didn’t have long to wait before a tunnel appeared in the center of her hovel, and with the last of her strength, she dragged herself down into her fox’s den.  She landed on her feet before slumping against one of the walls.  On seeing her, the woman didn’t react with apparent shock, only closed the tunnel behind her and crouched on the ground in front of her.

“Is she dead?”

“Yes.”

The woman reached her hand out tentatively over the hole in Luisa’s chest, fingers flinching the closer she got.  “I cannot heal this.”

“You knew this would happen.”

“I was afraid it might.”

“Am I dying?”

“No.”  The woman’s hand rubbed Luisa’s arm, and it felt warm, sparking, on her skin.  “I’m taking you to someone who can heal you.”  She leaned forward to kiss Luisa’s forehead, but Luisa sat up a little straighter to graze her lips with her own.  The woman pulled away, blue bright eyes searching Luisa’s.  “What are you doing?”

“Your knowledge,” Luisa said, voice as rough and ragged as her fox’s was the first time she’d given her a kiss.  “I want to see what you have seen.”

“My knowledge is too much for you to bear.”

Luisa grabbed the woman’s hand so tight that her nails dug into her skin.  “ _Show me._ ”

The woman whimpered but leaned forward again, brushing her nose against Luisa’s.  “You must promise me,” she said, voice soft, “that no matter what you see you will let me get you to someone who can heal you.”  But before Luisa could say anything one way or the other, the woman leaned forward and kissed her.

If Luisa weren’t still in pain from the throbbing emanating from the center of her chest outward, she’d acknowledge that this kiss was much more forceful than anything she’d felt from the other woman before.  But right now, she only felt numb and what should have been painful felt like nothing until the knowledge smoothly passed from the woman’s tongue to her own.

In the manner of the foxes, Luisa swallowed it whole.

Her eyes closed, and this time, the image of the redheaded woman appeared before her.  She didn’t even have to ask for what she wanted.  The woman smiled fondly at her, making as though to brush the hair from her eyes, then disappeared, pulling forth more scenes of Luisa’s mother than the other fox had of her father, despite their brief marriage when she was a child.  And the most recent of these showed what she should have known to expect, had she been willing to consider it.

“You killed my mother,” Luisa said as she opened her eyes, and she was glad that she still felt numb.

“Yes.”

“What payment do you want for the murder of the other fox and for saving my life?”

“My own life, fair maiden.  Nothing more.”

Luisa nodded once and closed her eyes again, taking a deep breath.  “Where are you taking me?”

“Somewhere you will be safe.”

The woman opened another tunnel just behind Luisa and lifted her in her arms before crawling up the tunnel.  When Luisa opened her eyes again, she saw the path to the witch’s house and the woods surrounding it.  She said nothing, only closing her eyes again.  “I don’t want to see you again,” she whispered, just loud enough for the woman to hear it.

“I will leave you here, and you will not need to worry about seeing me again.  If you look for me, you will not find me, as you no longer need my help.  You are strong enough now to help yourself.”

“I will kill you if I see you again.”

“I know.”

The woman shifted Luisa in her arms so that she could knock on the witch’s door.  Then she thought better of it and pushed the door open wide.  She lay Luisa on a sofa in the living room and left to find the witch.  While she was gone, Luisa was no longer able to hold herself up and faded into unconsciousness.

* * *

 

While she was sleeping, Luisa had a dream, but it did not feel like a dream, more like a memory.  She lay in the same place where the fox left her, and in the dream, she appeared to be sleeping, just as she was certain she was.  Her blouse was gone, and a blanket covered her torso.  The hole in the center of her chest was covered with bandages, so she could not see what the witch had done to her.  In the dream, she seemed to be someone other than herself, separate, watching.

The fox stood in the entryway with the witch.  They were saying something, but she could not make out their words.  The witch left, and the fox stepped forward.  In her hands, she held the wooden box which held Luisa’s heart.

Luisa screamed!  She was certain she could not be heard, not in a dream, not like this, and her body, which lay still sleeping, did not move.

But the fox paused and looked around for the briefest of moments before continuing forward.  She knelt next to Luisa’s body and opened the wooden box, removing her heart before placing the box on a nearby table.  Her hands deftly unwrapped the bandages around Luisa’s chest, revealing mottled skin that’d been hurriedly stitched together along with other work that the witch had left unfinished.

Then the fox held up Luisa’s heart and pressed her lips against it.

Throughout the dream, Luisa had felt nothing, but at the touch of the fox’s human lips to her heart, she felt a hollow, throbbing ache.  She looked closer, and her heart seemed to glow a faint golden light.  Before she could move closer, the woman pushed her heart back into her chest in one smooth motion, and Luisa – and her body – gasped.

The fox carefully wrapped the bandages back around Luisa’s chest then stood.  She brushed Luisa’s hair behind her ear, fingers grazing her skin, then kissed her forehead, and Luisa’s heart throbbed again with that deep, hollow ache.

“You have paid me in full,” the woman said, her voice soft.  “You may keep my knowledge as payment for the truths I kept hidden from you.  I will not return for it.”

Then the fox turned to see the witch watching her.  She moved back out of the room to join her, and the two conversed again.  Luisa could not understand what they were saying and soon slipped back into unconsciousness.

When she awoke again, the witch sat at her bedside, a bowl of liquid in one hand.  Luisa tried to sit up, but the witch placed a hand over hers, stilling her.  “Don’t move.  Your heart will not take it.”  She held out a spoon.  “Eat this.  It will help.”

Luisa took a bite and found that there was something in the liquid.  Whatever it was, it tasted horrible, but she choked it down.  Then she coughed.  “You are the healer?”

“No, I’m a witch.  A magical wound requires a magical healer.  Would you trust anyone else with your heart?”

“Not anymore.”

“I thought not.”  The witch held out another spoonful, and Luisa hesitated before taking another bite.  She continued to feed Luisa while she spoke.  “You must stay here with me until you have recovered, then you may go wherever you wish.  You can even stay with me, if that’s what you want, although I’ll tell you now that you won’t enjoy it.”

“I won’t stay here,” Luisa said.  “I don’t want any part in this anymore.”

“Broken-hearted romantic,” the witch said, shaking her head.  “It’s always either one or the other.  But don’t ask me to remove your heart again.  Your body won’t take it, and you will die.”

“I’d like to die.”

“Then do so, but don’t ask me – _or anyone else_ – to kill you.  That way lies madness.”  The witch sat back, her bowl now empty.  “You need to rest, unless you’ve decided death is a better option.”  She stood and took the bowl with her as she left the room.

Luisa lay back and found that there were now pillows situated behind her to help with her comfort.  She glanced down only to see bandages covering her chest.  There was no indication that what she dreamed was true at all, but as soon as she thought of it, she heard her heart pounding in her ears.  She swallowed and felt the fox’s knowledge deep in her throat, where it rested at the base of her tongue.  She didn’t want it anymore, but she didn’t know how to get rid of it.

After a few moments, Luisa turned to look out the window next to her.  The forest seemed as foggy as it had when she first walked through it.  Only days.  It felt much longer.  She leaned back and closed her eyes, and her heart throbbed once, a thick, hollow ache.

_Alone.  Alone.  Alone.  Alone.  Alone._

Never to see her fox again.

Never to see her fox.


	5. Chapter 5

In the course of time, Luisa grew better.  If asked, she could not say how long it took for the hole in her chest to heal or how long she spent in the witch’s cottage.  She could not even say how long it was before the witch gave her anything other than the foul-tasting liquidy substance to eat.  The days and nights blended together until everything seemed to be one long never-ending moment.

And when she slept, Luisa dreamed of her fox.

At first, Luisa wasn’t sure why it happened.  The dreams were the same as the one she’d had where the fox returned her heart.  Even though she knew she was dreaming, they felt very real.  Sometimes she saw the fox curled up in her den, and sometimes she saw the form of the redheaded woman that she liked to wear.  She felt like a ghost, unheard and unseen, although she found if she touched something she could frighten the fox.  It was easy to gain amusement from this, but it was a petty, hollow feeling.  Most of the time, she just watched, although there wasn’t much to see.

Luisa didn’t learn much about the witch either while she stayed with her, but she did learn that  _witch_  was not a term meant to say whether the woman was  _good_  or  _bad_.  She heard it frequently enough that she quickly grew tired of the conversation.  When the witch brought it up, Luisa closed her eyes, and the witch would quiet down to let her rest.  Luisa thought she would call her out for the trick, but she never did.  Maybe she didn’t notice.  Maybe she just understood.

When Luisa grew well enough to begin sitting up and eating real food, she requested rose petal tea and biscuits with honey.  The witch was wary but complied with her request.  Then, every day, around tea time, Luisa sat in the front room that became hers, alone, and ate and drank.  It was calming, but it brought back the familiar but no longer constant ache in the center of her chest.  The first time, her eyes filled with tears, but none of them were traitorous enough to spill over.  After that, it became easier.  Now, she barely felt a thing.

Even when the hole finished healing, leaving a rose-shaped scar, Luisa chose to stay with the witch a little longer.  The cottage was tucked away in the woods where few people visited, and though physically she was completely healed, mentally and emotionally she was not.  Staying with the witch didn’t particularly help with either of those, but staying away from civilization  _did_.

“How long do you think you will be staying?” the witch asked her one day, sitting down across from her with a cup of her own tea.

Luisa curled her legs beneath her and glanced away from the window.  She’d gotten into the habit of watching the world outside when she hadn’t been able to move from the spot, never once seeing the appearance of a shadowy figure in the fog in the woods, and now that she was able to move, Luisa’d come to find that the action calmed and centered her.  “Have I overstayed my welcome?”

“Not at all.”  The witch placed her cup on the table.  “You’ve been a great roommate, but I think it’s time to move on and rejoin society.”

“You miss living here alone.”

“I  _really_  miss living here alone.”

Luisa chuckled at that and glanced down to her bare hands.  “Then I guess it’s time I get a move on.  You’ll have to show me how to get back from here.  I’ve only ever traveled by—”  She stopped short before the words could come out and then wondered why she did.  Mentioning that she’d been brought here by a fox and her den didn’t necessarily implicate the woman who brought her here last, and even if it did, what did she owe her?  Keeping her secret would make her human.  Did she want that?  Wouldn’t it feel better to curse her to another thousand years as a fox?

And yet, despite the anger she’d initially felt at learning that  _that_  fox killed her mother and ate her heart, despite the anger that still sat square in the center of her chest, Luisa couldn’t bring herself to do it.  Not intentionally.  She was certainly that vengeful and that petty, but the time she’d spent here had neutralized most of that.  Now, she was just tired.

 _So_  tired.

“I can make you a map.”

Luisa lifted her cup of tea then held it between both of her hands, letting it warm her.  “You’ve seen a lot of  _broken-hearted romantics_.”

The witch smiled fondly at the use of her own term and the not-so-subtle change of subject before replying.  “Yes, I have.”

“What do you think causes that?”  Luisa didn’t pause before continuing, correcting herself, “Not the  _broken-hearted_  bit or the  _romantic_  bit, but what do you think goes through their mind?  Do you think it’s intentional, the heart breaking?  Whatever causes it, don’t you think there are ways it could be avoided?  Couldn’t they just not mess with people if they knew they were going to end up hurting them?”

“Most of the time people don’t know.”  The witch lifted her own cup and tilted it in Luisa’s direction.  “Something comes up or they fall out of love or they find someone new – it’s rarely an intentional act to hurt someone they love or used to love.  Sometimes it’s in trying to avoid breaking someone else’s heart that their own heart is broken.”

“What do you mean?”

The witch took a long sip of her tea then placed it back down on the table.  “Once I knew a woman who was deeply in love with another woman.  They spent many long years together, and each year that passed, her love remained the same, unwavering.  Then one day, she realized that something had changed.  She didn’t know what it was or when it happened, but she was no longer in love with the woman she’d spent so much time with.  Rather than end the relationship or tell the other woman the truth, she came to me, seeking to have her heart removed.  It was better, in her mind, to live without her heart than to hurt the other woman by telling her that she was no longer in love with her.”

Luisa leaned forward, elbows on her knees, eyes wide.   “And did that work?”

“I don’t know.”  The witch leaned back in her seat, clasping her hands together.  “The woman explained her situation, and I removed her heart.  She didn’t come to see me again.”

“Do you not get to know the endings to your stories?”

“Rarely.”  The witch tapped her finger forward.  “But if you were in the situation, would you rather the woman you loved live a lie, or would you rather her tell you the truth?”

“The truth,” Luisa replied immediately.  “Even if it was painful, even if we broke up, I would rather know the truth than continue to live a lie, even if I didn’t know it was one.”

“Then that’s your answer.”

“Yes.”

“And you would tell the truth yourself, even if it hurt the woman you once loved?”

“Well,” and here Luisa had to pause.  Then, finally, she shook her head.  “No, I wouldn’t.”

“You’d want to know the truth, but you couldn’t tell it?”  The witch held up a hand before Luisa could say anything else.  “No, no, it’s  _different_  when you’re the one causing pain than when you’re the one  _in_  pain.  I know.”  She stood, dusting her hands together.  “I’ll get you that map.”

That night, while Luisa slept, she dreamed of her fox.  The fox was returning to her den, her tail brushing against the tunnel to close it as her human hand might have.  She was thinner than Luisa remembered, thinner even than she’d been the last time she’d dreamed her, almost unhealthily so, and she returned to her human form, the great marking on her back stark black against her pale skin.  It was only then that Luisa could see the bones peeking through, the way the fox shivered as she curled up under layers and layers of blankets.

Once, Luisa might have been moved by this.  Now, she only wished that the fox would quit plaguing her dreams the way she’d plagued her life.

* * *

 

The next day, Luisa started out from the witch’s cottage.  The witch walked with her as far as the edge of the wood, so that she would not be distracted left or right by the shadowy figure she’d heard before or by any other creatures that might be lurking in the fog.  Once they left the wood, though, the witch gave directions to lead Luisa back into the city proper and handed her a map before turning around and heading back to her cottage.  Luisa followed the path until it ended then stopped for a light meal before continuing south, using the sun and the map as her guide.  As the sun began to set, she saw a little building in the distance, and she made for it, only to find that she’d arrived at her own little hovel.  Not willing to continue on in the dark, she made her way inside and locked the door behind her.

The image of the fox’s den that Luisa’d created years before mocked her now.  The lights flickering in their star shapes seemed hollow and dark, the bed with its piles of pillows and blankets seemed worn and moth-eaten, and the little cabinets that held ingredients for biscuits and tea seemed moldy and rotten.  On second glance, none of these things were so, but they  _seemed_  so.  Luisa rummaged through the cabinets and made small, hard biscuits mixed with sprigs of lavender and ate them unsweetened with a cup of water.  The witch hadn’t had much untouched food.  Everything was either sweet (like the apple pies which Luisa’d definitely eaten one too many of) or bitter (like the liquidy substance she’d fed her when Luisa hadn’t had the strength to so much as sit up) or spicy (like the stew she’d made for the colder evenings and which made Luisa’s heart pleasantly warm), and the simplicity of the lavender biscuits after all of that made them taste all the better.

When she curled up on her bed, Luisa couldn’t help but remember the time she’d spent here trying to calm her anxious fox, not realizing who and what she was.  She turned to face the wall and covered herself with blankets until even with her eyes wide open, everything was dark.  Despite all of this, she still dreamed of the fox while she slept, still saw her buried, shivering, beneath as many blankets as Luisa had heaped on herself.  Luisa just closed her eyes and turned away.

* * *

 

The first thing Luisa did on arriving in the city was seek out the female detective who had taken on her father’s case.  On arriving at the station, she found that the woman was busy on another case, so she left a message for the woman to be able to find her if she still wanted to meet.  Then she returned to her father’s mansion.

Luisa had thought the mansion empty when she’d arrived to kill the other fox, but it was even more hollow now.  All of the furniture was covered with white sheets.  The sofa where the fox tore a hole in her chest was gone, along with the rug that once sat beneath it.  She wasn’t sure how to feel about it.  The room felt wrong without them there, but Luisa wasn’t sure she could face the potential blood spatter or staining that she was certain would have remained behind.  She shivered and continued through the mansion.

Once she made it upstairs, Luisa removed the sheets in her room and lay down on her bed, staring at the ceiling.  There wasn’t anything to see.  She turned to look out her window and stared down on the rose bush where she first met her fox.  Almost, she could imagine it unfolding before her again, the little girl that she was running and sliding down the fox’s tunnel to hide.  She took a deep breath.

A knocking came at the front door, loud and booming through the empty walls, before Luisa could doze off.  She wasn’t surprised to see the blonde detective when she answered the door, but she could see that the detective was surprised to see her.  The detective pulled her into a tight hug as soon as she saw her.  “You’re not dead!”

“I told you I wouldn’t be.”  Luisa stepped back and gestured inside for the detective to follow her.  “I just needed time for my heart to heal.”

“You needed a lot of time,” the detective said.  “I was worried about you.”

If it had been before, Luisa might have led the detective to the sofas across from each other, but given that one of the sofas was now gone and the building only felt as though it were growing emptier, she instead led the detective upstairs, back to her room.  She sat on the bed and gestured for the detective to sit next to her.  The detective hesitated for a moment, considering a chair sitting unused in front of what appeared to be an extensive vanity, then, at the look on Luisa’s face, chose to sit next to her.

“How did you know?” the detective asked finally.

“Know what?”

“How did you know that a fox was masquerading as my partner?”

Luisa tucked her legs under her then looked down at her hands where she clasped them in her lap.  “I was friends with a fox once.  She told me many things, including that your partner was a fox.”

“Was this fox your father’s friend?”

“No,” Luisa replied immediately.  “This fox was no friend of my father’s.”  It wasn’t as though she didn’t know what the blonde detective meant, and it wasn’t as though she couldn’t tell her the truth.  But something still prevented her from speaking.  Maybe it was that she didn’t want to cause any more trouble than she already had.  Maybe she was just tired.

“Are the two of you no longer friends?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“We had a fight, that fox and I.  She kept a horrible secret from me, and when I found out, I sent her away.”

“Ah.”  The detective nodded.  When she didn’t ask what the secret was, Luisa found herself comforted.  The silence was almost comfortable, too.  Then the detective placed one hand over Luisa’s.  “Foxes are confusing and magical creatures.  They can’t be expected to tell us everything.”

“I deserved to know this.”

“She told you other things,” the detective said.  “About herself, about foxes, about how to find one and how to kill it.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It doesn’t?” the detective asked.  “It means something to me.”  She interlaced her fingers with Luisa’s.  “Foxes are very private creatures.  They don’t reveal themselves to anyone—”

“I found her out!  Based on the tattoo on her back!  I did that myself!” Luisa said, removing her hand from the detective’s.

“I went through your file when I was investigating your father’s death.  You know he found you with a fox when you were very small, and they found your stepmother’s body shortly afterward.  What happened?”

Luisa looked away, considering.  “The fox was masquerading as my stepmother.  I saw the tattoo on her back and made her change.  She probably would have eaten me if my dad hadn’t come back just then.”

“How did you know?”

“My fox told me.”

“Told you what?”

“That my stepmother was a fox.  That I would know by the tattoo on her back.”

“Mmhmm.”  The detective nodded.  “You probably don’t know this, but someone called your father that day.  They told him you were in trouble, and he rushed back just in time to save you.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Of course it doesn’t.”  The detective patted Luisa’s hand.  “You can’t know everything.  It’d be nice if you had the fox’s knowledge, like the one you gave me.  Then you could poke around and see.”

“She killed my mother.  That’s the only thing that matters.”  Luisa looked up.  “If she hadn’t, then none of this would have happened.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I don’t need to.”  Luisa’s eyes narrowed.  “Are you here to defend my fox, or are you here to help me?”

The detective hesitated.  “To help you,” she said finally, eyes cast down.  “Neither, if I’m honest.  I’m here to see that you’re okay, and you are, so I guess that means you want me to leave?”

“No.”  Luisa drew the word out, one long whine of a word.  “Stay.”  She placed her hand on the detective’s and squeezed once.  “Stay with me.  I don’t want to be alone.”  She leaned her head on the detective’s shoulder.  “Please.”

The detective did stay for a few moments, letting Luisa lean against her.  But eventually, she took her hand out from Luisa’s and moved away from her.  “I can’t.”  She met Luisa’s eyes with a thin lipped expression.  “It wouldn’t be right.”

And despite how much she wanted to not be alone, Luisa decided not to press the issue.  Instead, she said, her voice soft, “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”  She didn’t look up as the detective stood.  “You’re a fox, too.”  Then she shook her head, holding up a hand before the detective could reply.  “I don’t want to know if you are.  I can’t bear the burden of your secret, too.  You’ll probably eat me for finding out.”  Luisa chuckled.  “I keep getting passed from one fox to another.  I wouldn’t mind.  I’m so  _tired_.  All the time now.  My heart aches, and I don’t know why.  And no matter what I do, I keep dreaming of my fox.”  She finally looked up with a feeble grin.  “If you  _were_  a fox, and you  _did_  want to eat me, I wouldn’t hold it against you.  I wouldn’t even seek any payment.  Being free of all this would be enough.”

The blonde detective stared at Luisa with unblinking brown dark eyes.  “I’m not going to kill you,” she said, finally.  “Even if I  _were_  a fox, you’ve been through enough without another one eating you, too.”

“Even if I asked very nicely?”

“Even if you asked very nicely.”  The detective smiled.  “Maybe it would be a good idea to go somewhere else for a little bit.  Throw yourself into something.  Give yourself someone you can spend time with, who would care if you were gone.”

“I don’t think that’ll help.”

“It might.”  The detective’s hand clenched once.  “After all of this, it’s hard to know what to do next.  But you made it through.  Build a life for yourself.  It might not make the heartache go away, but in time, maybe you’ll get used to it.  And if you find you don’t, go get help.  There are healers equipped for that.”

“I know.”  Luisa looked down at her hands again.  “Are you sure you won’t stay?”

“Will you be safe if I don’t?”

Luisa considered lying just so she wouldn’t have to be alone, but she didn’t.  “I’ll be fine.  Go.  Just don’t expect to see me.”

“Why?”

“I think I’ll follow your advice.  I think I’ll leave here.”

The detective nodded once and leaned forward to squeeze Luisa’s hand once before leaving her alone in the great, empty mansion.  Luisa tried to sleep in her own bed, but she could not face the window without thinking about her fox, and she couldn’t face the empty room without thinking about the discussion she’d had with her fox, hiding here, before they’d escaped the one who’d eaten her father and ran to her fox’s den.

So Luisa left her room and made her way to her father’s bedroom.  It was much bigger and more plush than her own, although the amount of pillows and blankets atop his bed were not worth comparing with the ones that topped her fox’s.  Luisa refused to think about this, instead curling up next to where her father once slept, covering herself with blankets, and falling into a restless sleep.

This time, when her dreams took her back to the fox’s den and she found the fox still curled up under her blankets, still bone thin and shivering, Luisa went forward.  She’d been staying far away, trying to ignore her, but this time, she found herself curious.  When she crept forward, she found tear tracks darkening the fur along the fox’s eyes.  Her heart ached, and some small part of her wanted to reach out and brush the fur between the fox’s ears.

But she didn’t.

* * *

 

At the blonde detective’s suggestion, Luisa left the land of her father.  Even if it hadn’t been suggested, Luisa would not have stayed in her father’s mansion.  It had not felt like home before, and it felt even less like that now, empty as it was without her father or anyone else there with her.  So she left, running far away to the place where she’d stayed during her studies.  She didn’t have to see her father’s mansion.  She didn’t have to go back to the mockery of her fox den hovel.  She didn’t have to feel achingly alone.

She took up a job there as a healer, and as years passed, the dreams of her fox stopped.  Her mind became focused on the people around her, people who knew nothing of her or her father or detectives or witches or foxes, and for a while, this seemed to help.  But every now and again, something in the center of her chest would resound with a vague ache and then grow as hollow as the huge mansion of her father the last time she was there.  For the most part, she ignored this, and for the most part, it went away.

Then one night, quite unbidden, Luisa dreamed of her fox again.  This time, her dream did not take her to the fox’s den.  Instead, Luisa found the fox running through a thicket, breathing heavily.  She could hear the sounds of hounds braying behind her.  All at once, there was a sharp cracking boom like fireworks, and the fox stumbled.  Then the fox rushed, limping, forward and slipped down a tunnel.  She pressed her nose against the wall of her den to close it off, then returned to her bed, licking at the blood dripping from her shoulder.

Luisa woke with a start!  The loud cracking boom continued to ring in her ears, and her heart throbbed with pain.  She glanced outside her window but saw nothing.  It was then that, despite her attempts to forget it entirely, Luisa remembered the drink, and she remembered the tavern where she once met the crane woman.  A part of her thought maybe this would help with the ache and would purge her mind of the dream.  It had always made her feel good before, except for that last time.  So she made her way down to the bars and the taverns in search of a drink.

She did not intend to go to the tavern where she had met the crane woman, and yet she did so anyway.  She sat at the counter and ordered her first drink in what must have been close to a decade.  Then she paid for it with a single gold coin, enough to refill it when she was done, and sat with her hands clasping the cup.  She wanted to drink, and she did not want to drink.  So she sat with it in front of her, waiting for the ache in her chest to return again, waiting for the proper moment to drink.

While she was waiting, men and women came and sat next to her, ordered their drink, and left.  Some stayed for a few moments, but none stayed long enough for a conversation, having other thoughts in mind and being distracted by those.  At some point, she stopped noticing them entirely, which explained why she didn’t notice when someone familiar leaned against the counter next to her.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

Luisa turned to see none other than the crane woman standing next to her.  She smiled and raised her drink.  “It’s been a while.”

“Almost ten years.  And  _you_  aren’t supposed to have  _that_.”  The crane woman looked to the glass and then back to Luisa.  “How long have you been drinking again?”

“I haven’t yet,” Luisa said, placing the glass back on the counter with a clink.  “It seemed like a good idea.”

“We’ve been over this.  It’s  _never_  a good idea for you.”

“Says the woman with her own drink.”

“Who isn’t an alcoholic.”

“Pot _ay_ to, pot _ah_ to.”  Luisa drummed her fingers on the countertop.  “You haven’t changed.”

“You have.”

Luisa shrugged.  “It’s been ten years.  Everyone changes.  Even me.”  She laughed and passed the drink over.  “Take it.  I don’t want it.”

“You want something.”

“A lot of things.”  Luisa smiled.  “You were right, you know.”

“About drinking?”

“About the fox.  The one who sent me to you.  I shouldn’t have trusted her.”

“Ah.”  The woman took a sip of the drink and grimaced.  “How long have you had this?”

“A few hours.”

“Ugh.  It’s all watered down.”

“Be glad I didn’t drink it.”

“Right.”  The crane woman took another sip of her drink and grimaced again.  “What happened with your fox?”

“Doesn’t matter.  I moved on.”

“And you’re bringing it up with me in a tavern you shouldn’t be in because you shouldn’t be drinking.”  The crane woman tilted the glass toward her.  “What happened with your fox?”

Luisa lifted her hand for the bartender and ordered a glass of water.  “I found out something I didn’t like.  I haven’t seen her in years.”

“Well, good riddance.”  The crane woman lifted her glass in a toast, which Luisa mimicked with her water.  “Never trust a fox.  Mystical magical  _bullshit_  who think they can live by their own rules while the rest of us struggle to actually be human.  Foxes and all their  _knowledge_  not realizing that tampering with people’s lives fucks them up.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“Isn’t it?” the crane woman asked.  “Isn’t that why you’re here?  Isn’t that why you were here the first time?”

Luisa shook her head.  “I got myself on the drink.  The fox got me off it.”

“And led you right back to it.”

“That was my decision.”

“Was it?”  The crane woman finished her glass and left it on the counter.  “Thanks for the drink.  It was nice to see you again.”

Luisa watched as the crane woman left.  She finished her glass of water, thinking, and then returned to her own hovel.  It was bare, much more bare than even the hovel that had looked like the fox’s den.  She curled up in her bed with her one blanket and laid her head on her single pillow, and when she slept, she dreamed of her fox again.

The fox lay curled up on top of her pile of blankets and pillows, breathing heavily.  She was yet thinner than the last time Luisa had seen her, and a sheen of sweat beaded through her fur.  She seemed greasy, unclean, and the wound in her shoulder was crusted over with pus and blood.  Luisa, even as a ghost, moved toward her fox and ran a hand along the fur between her ears.  The fox sat up, her teeth bared, but on seeing nothing, she dropped back down almost immediately.

“I need you to change,” Luisa whispered, brushing her hand behind the fox’s ear, and with a deep, shaking breath, the fox became human.  She was pale, and her skin was a mottled gray.  Luisa took one of the blankets and laced it between the woman’s teeth.  “Bite down on this.”

Luisa was a healer, but of people, not of animals.  She slowly began to work on the wound in the woman’s shoulder, ignoring the muffled whimpers and shouts the woman made.  It took time, but she removed the bullet and the pus, disinfecting it as much as she could.  When she was done, it seemed cleaner, all sewn shut, and she left a glass of water on the stool, dipped another blanket into the cold spring water in the bathing room, and returned to bathe the woman’s forehead.  “I will return,” she whispered, “to make sure this heals properly.  Stay here.  Agitating it will make it worse.”

“What payment do you require?” the fox whispered, her voice ragged and rough.

“You asked for your life,” Luisa said, stepping away.  “I’m paying you back.”

* * *

 

The next morning, Luisa woke early and placed signs around her work, letting people know she would be taking time off.  She didn’t suggest why, but she expected that her patients would assume she’d taken a much needed vacation.  What they couldn’t know was that she intended to spend her new free time in her little hovel, seated cross-legged on her bed, eyes closed as she tried to access her fox’s knowledge.

It was as easy this time as it had been the first time.  As she focused, the fox appeared in her human form before her, red hair curled around her shoulders, the same fond smile on her lips at seeing Luisa as it had been the first time.  Luisa did not need to speak, but she did so anyway.

“I want to see my mother.”

The memories started to fill her mind, too many, all at once.  “Stop, stop!” she exclaimed, and everything paused.  “One at a time, please, from the first time, not the…not the last.”  She had already seen the fox tearing into her mother’s chest once.  She didn’t need to see it again.

Luisa leaned back against her headboard as the first memory began.

_The fox crept through the graveyard.  Her nose twitched as she sniffed the air, tail flicking back and forth along the ground.  A thousand years gone, and the humans decided to poison their corpses.  Hours of searching before finding something fresh.  She began to paw at the ground, digging open the shallow grave and burrowing into the corpse’s chest to find an untainted heart, then leaned back on her haunches to devour it._

_“Stop!”_

_The fox dropped the heart and stood over it, her teeth bared, a growl ripping from her chest._

_A strange woman with dark hair and flashing dark eyes came forward, hands in front of her, with her palms forward in a gesture of peace.  “I’m not going to hurt you,” the woman said, crouching in front of the fox, “but if you eat that, you will die.”_

_“No, I won’t,” the fox growled, her voice stern and teeth still bared.  “This one does not reek of your chemicals.  I will be fine.  But thank you for your concern.”_

_When the woman started forward again, unsurprised by the talking fox, the fox took the heart in her teeth and ran backwards, hiding in a nearby bush.  She picked at her meal as she watched the woman, who bent forward to look at the corpse she’d uncovered._

_“We didn’t bury this one,” the woman said, glancing up into the bushes, eyes searching for the fox she couldn’t see.  “Someone else did.  Someone who wanted to hide them.”_

_“They did a poor job.”  The fox took another bite of the heart and swallowed it whole.  “You only need someone who can smell it to dig it up.”_

_“Someone like you?”_

_The fox swallowed the rest of the heart and felt it piece itself back together in her stomach, filling her knowledge with what it knew and adding its face and form to the hundreds she’d already collected.  “And what would I gain from that?”_

_“Hearts.”  The woman looked down at the body and back to the bushes where the fox hid.  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?  Hearts?”_

_“Tell me more.”_

_“Every one of them you find,” the woman continued, stepping closer to the bushes.  “As many victims as you discover, as many murderers as you catch – every single one of them that has a heart left to devour, it is yours.”_

_The fox grinned, her blue bright eyes flashing in the moonlight.  “And who would I tell when I find these victims?  What would keep me from eating their hearts and leaving their bodies to the birds of the air, as I have been doing?”_

_“If you take their hearts, it looks like a fox murdered them.”  The woman pointed at the corpse she’d uncovered.  “They’ll think you, or another like you, buried them yourself and some other creature unearthed them.  They’ll blame you.”_

_“There is no one like me,” the fox said with a sharp bark.  “And they would blame a fox anyway.”_

_“Not if you work with me.”  The woman stepped closer.  “I’ll protect you, and you’ll help me catch the people doing this.  We’ll be a team.”_

_“A bad team,” the fox said, but she crept out from the bushes.  She looked over the other woman once then stepped forward, sniffing her with ears laid back, tail low and still.  “But if you will make finding hearts easier, then I will work with you.  For now.”_

Then the memory faded.

Luisa opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.  It hadn’t helped much.  Not much at all.  When she brought back more memories, the next several were of the fox walking with her mother, the woman she’d met in the graveyard, and sniffing around various locations before finding another corpse.  Her mother would alert the authorities and, when they were done with the body, would deliver the heart to the fox.

It took what must have been months before her mother finally asked,

_“Why do you eat those hearts?”_

_“If I eat enough, I will become human,” the fox said, very matter of fact._

_“I know that,” the woman said.  She stuck her hands in her pockets as they walked and shivered once in the cold.  “But why_ these _hearts?  You’re a fox.  You could be seductive or luring young women to their deaths.”_

_“Women?”_

_“Men.  Women.  Whoever you wanted.”_

_“You said women.”_

_“I said women.”  The woman waved one hand.  “Why eat dead hearts instead of living ones?  Wouldn’t you get more—”_

_“I take no pleasure in eating human hearts.  But it is what I must do.”_

_“You have no other choice?”_

_The fox remained silent._

Luisa didn’t want to see any more.  She shoved the rest of the memories away and got out of her bed.  They could wait until tomorrow.  Or never.  Or  _not_  never.  This was a side of her mother she had never seen before, and while she couldn’t care less what happened to the fox, while she knew how the story ended, she couldn’t help but want to know more about the parent she’d only known for a short time, even if it wasn’t much to go on.

Later, while she slept, Luisa made a small porridge for the fox in her dreams, a recipe similar to that of the witch’s liquidy substance, the one which had tasted so foul.  She fed the fox a spoonful at a time and made sure to clean and rebandage her wound before she left.  The whole time, the fox watched her with blue bright eyes, and it was only on noticing them that Luisa saw just how cloudy and dark they’d become.

But Luisa didn’t speak while she was there, and when she was done with what she felt she needed to do, she left.  She still didn’t understand what it was that sent her, even as a ghost, to the fox who had lied to her and betrayed her mother, and she didn’t know what it was that sent her back.  If she knew how to control it, she wouldn’t go back at all, but until then, she would continue to do what she could.  Maybe then she would stop returning in her dreams again.

The next week was spent like that – going through the fox’s memories of her mother while awake and serving the fox while she was asleep.  There was very little new in the memories, only that her mother seemed to grow more quiet and despondent as time passed.  Then, one day, she found a memory that stuck out to her, that seemed almost faded.

_“I think it’s time for me to stop doing this.”_

_The woman shoved her hands into her back pockets and looked up at the sky.  “I like walking with you, and I like our conversations,”_  which Luisa knew to be a joke because for the most part her mother and the fox were silent as they hunted, _“but I’m getting married soon.”  She placed her hand on her stomach but still kept looking up.  “I won’t have time to continue these searches anymore.”_

_“Your husband will keep you caged,” the fox said.  “You should be able to do what you want.”_

_The woman looked back down at the fox.  “This is what I want.”_

_“Is it?”_

_The fox leaned back and sat down, licking one of her paws the way a cat might.  “It seems to me that you’re sacrificing something you want for something that will cost you your freedom.”_

_The woman tilted her head to the side with a rare smile.  “I’m sacrificing something I want for something I want more.  Wouldn’t you lose your freedom for cubs, if you had them?”_

_“I do not want cubs.”  The fox turned her cold gaze on the woman.  “I would not put them in this position.”_

_“But if you did want them.”_

_“I don’t.”_

_The woman sighed.  “I do.”  She patted her stomach once.  “I want this one.”  She turned away.  “And it’s dangerous to be spending time with a fox hunting down murderers and their victims while carrying a child.”_

_“Other people do it all the time.”_

_“I’m not other people.”_

_The fox nodded once, and after a great silence, she said, “I could protect her.”_

_“And what would that cost me?”_

_The fox considered this a moment.  “No cost.  Only that you continue in this stead.”_

_“So you can find more hearts.  So_ you _can become human.”  The woman chuckled.  “I misjudged you.”_

_The fox didn’t say anything.  Her tail flicked once.  Then she started forward again, sniffing the air.  “Not everyone gets everything they want.  There is always a sacrifice.  Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick on losing this when you can have both.”_

A great deal of time passed between that memory and the one following it, and when the fox saw her mother again, it was not in her fox form but in that of the redheaded woman, the first time she’d been such in these memories.  This form was familiar to Luisa – the redheaded police detective who had come to them when her stepmother died – even if the scene itself was not.  Her mother didn’t seem to recognize the woman as the fox, and this made sense, as the fox had never revealed a human form around her mother.  But her mother still greeted her warmly, as the new detective who had taken her place.  And when she handed her newborn child to the fox, she seemed to finally note the blue bright eyes training themselves on the small child.  She patted the redhead’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze, making sure to thank her for her service with a smile before leaving.

After that, the memories grew fainter, much more like the singular memory she’d seen in the knowledge of the fox who ate her father’s heart.  The fox saw her mother in passing, often seeing a small child with her.  It was a slight thing, until—

_“I’m so tired.”_

The memory started without interlude, throwing Luisa into it without any warning.  Her mother lay on her back, staring up at the stars.  Her eyes closed.

_“I thought I would feel something again by now.  There’s nothing.”_

_“Maybe your heart is not working right,” the fox said, curled up next to her with her head resting on the woman’s chest.  “I hear it beating, but that does not mean something may not be wrong.  I know of a witch who can check it for you.”_

_“That isn’t what I meant.”_

_The woman ran a hand through the fox’s fur, and there was no discussion of worth or a lack thereof.  The fox butted her head against the woman’s hand, and the woman began to scratch idly.  “I’m tired.”_

_“So you’ve said.”_

_“But not where I need sleep.  It’s deeper than that.  It’s like this thick hollow ache sitting in my bones.”  The woman glanced down at the fox.  “Have you ever felt anything like that?”_

_“Sometimes,” the fox admitted, “when I go through the memories of those whose hearts I have eaten.  Some of them felt like that.  Others felt a large numbness spread across their entire body.”_

_“When they died.”_

_“No.  While they were alive.  Some of them wanted to die because of it.”_

_“Sometimes I think I would like to die.”_

_“And leave your cub behind?”_

_“You said you would protect her.”_

_“You didn’t keep up your half of the bargain.”_

_“No, I didn’t.”  The woman paused, then turned on her side, propping herself up on one elbow, so that she could look at the fox lying beside her.  “And if I offered you something else?” the woman asked.  “Something I know that you would want?”_

_The fox pulled away from the woman and sat up.  “I do not want that.”_

_“Don’t you?”_

Sometimes Luisa could not make it through the memories, and this time, seeing her mother’s eyes trained on the fox, she had to stop.  She pulled herself out of it as soon as she saw the determination in her mother’s eyes, the equal amount in the fox’s as she turned away.  If she could throw the fox’s knowledge, she would.  Instead, she curled up on her side and tried to sleep.

She was thrown immediately into the fox’s den.

Her hands clenched at her sides.  She did not want this.  The fox was doing well enough on her own by now to not need Luisa coming to check on her again, and yet, here she was, brought here against her will.  Again.  She moved the stool with a loud  _clunk_  and sat down on top of it with an equally loud  _thunk_.  The woman jumped where she sat on the edge of her bed, then settled as Luisa became visible to her.  “What’s wrong?”

“You,” Luisa said, burying her head in her hands.  “ _You_  are what is wrong.”

The woman propped herself up against the wall, scooting as far away from Luisa as she could while still sitting on the bed, and wrapped herself in blankets.  “You can quit coming.  I no longer need you.”

“You told my mother you would protect me, and it cost her heart, just like you told me you could protect my father and it would cost  _my_  heart.”

The woman took a deep breath.  “You have been through my memories.”

“Yes.”

“Then you know that is not what happened.  I would have protected you for far less.”

“You planted the idea in her head!”

“Simply by existing,” the fox said, her voice calm.  “I told you my knowledge was too much for you to bear.  You cannot understand—”

“I understand a fox so greedy for hearts that she ate the one of her only friend!”

“That’s not what happened.”

“You ate her heart!”

“I gave her death  _meaning_.”  The woman looked up, and her eyes, which had never seemed so except the once in her memories, now felt cold and blunt, even cloudy as they were.  “Your mother wanted to die, and there was nothing I or anyone else could do to stop her.  She spoke to me because she knew I would not speak my concerns to anyone else, because she knew I  _could_  not.  And she would not listen to any attempt I made to change her mind.”

“So you ate her heart.”

“Better that I did than the fox who was following us.”  The fox’s eyes did not move from Luisa’s face.  “She would have eaten your mother’s heart and worn her face to come for you and your father.  That is what she did.  I couldn’t let her do that.”

“You ate her alive!”

“I covered up where she stabbed through her own chest.”  The woman looked away.  “She did not give me a choice.”

“My mother wanted to live.”

The fox shook her head.  “You have seen my memories.  You know that isn’t true.”

“My mother loved me.”

“More than life itself.  She did not want to subject you or your father to her pain.  She didn’t believe there was anything she could do to stop it.”

“Quit defending her.  Quit defending  _you_.”

Luisa looked up, but the woman was no longer seated on the bed.  She looked about the room, but before she could see her, she felt something moving through her ghostly appearance.  Then she turned to see the woman trying to place a hand on her shoulder, saw the hand through her skin, and laughed.  “She left me.  If it is the way you say, then she left me.  But if you killed her, then I can blame you.”

“You can continue to blame me.  I have eaten almost one thousand human hearts.  I should be blamed.”

“You didn’t kill any of them.  Only my mother.”

“You have not seen everything.  My knowledge is too much for you to bear.”  The woman removed her hand from Luisa’s transparent form.  “Your mother killed herself and gave me her heart so I could protect you.”

“And yet you never once wore her face.  You left us open and hurting and alone, when you could have been her.”

“That would have been a greater lie than believing that the same fox who killed your father killed her, even greater than believing that I did.”

Luisa shook her head.  “My whole life has been a lie.”

“Only a small part of it.”

“You aren’t helping.”  Luisa ran her hands through her hair again, rough.  “I have kept your secret.”

“I know.”

“When will you be human?”

“Very soon.”

Luisa nodded once.  “If I asked, would you come to see me?”

“I thought you did not want that.”

“I’m not sure that I do.”  Luisa looked up, back at the woman’s face, and she reached out to gingerly touch her arm.  “This is healing nicely, but it will scar.  You should have seen someone.  If you had left it as it was, it would have killed you.”

“Who would I have seen?  They could have discovered me.  They could have killed me, split me along the line of my stomach.”

“You could have died.”

“Why does that matter to you?  Don’t you want me dead?”

“I don’t know,” Luisa said, voice soft.  “I don’t know.”

The dream ended then, and Luisa sat up in her own bed, covered in a thin layer of sweat.  She shivered and drew her blanket closer about her, and this time when she went to sleep, she did not dream of her fox.

Instead, she saw the figure of her mother.  This felt much more dreamlike than the dreams of her fox, which she knew were somehow quite real.  Her mother touched her face and kissed her forehead and smiled, but she said nothing, as though she had no voice, as though it had been stolen from her.

Luisa clung to her and wept.

When she woke in the morning, Luisa felt refreshed, and when she returned to her fox’s knowledge, she had another thought in mind.  The woman asked her, eyes dark, if she wanted to see her mother again, and this time, Luisa stopped her, one hand on her arm, her voice soft.

“Show me your favorite memory.”

“I do not have one,” the woman said, tone even.  “I have many.”

“Show me.”

The woman’s head tilted to the side in an action reminiscent of the fox, and she blinked twice.  Then her eyes lit up, a grin split her face, and she disappeared entirely as a memory appeared.

_“This is my cub.”  The dark-haired woman gently placed her child on the ground and sat just behind her, watching the fox.  “Her name is Luisa.”_

_“Luisa,” the fox repeated._

_The human cub sat, watching the fox with big round eyes, and the fox glanced from the cub to the woman and back again.  She crept forward, ears laid back, and stretched her head out, sniffing the human before her.  Her tail flicked once.  The human cub’s face scrunched up, and she sneezed!  The fox sat back and rubbed at her nose with one black paw while the woman laughed.  It took a few moments of intense staring at the cub before the fox leaned forward again, then stepped closer, sniffing her skin and the crop of fur on the top of her head._

_At first, the human cub sat perfectly still, but as the fox crept around to sniff her back, the cub grabbed her tail!  The fox yipped once in surprise and jumped back, ripping her tail out of the cub’s hands.  The cub clenched her hands on empty space a few times before looking up at the fox with tear-filled eyes.  Her lower lip started quivering, and she started to sniffle._

_The fox moved forward and sniffed the cub’s face again before licking the tears on her cheeks.  She leaned back, and the cub held out one hand.  The fox sniffed her chubby little fingers then butted her head against her palm.  All at once, the cub buried her fingers in the fur around the fox’s neck.  She tangled them there, feeling how soft it was.  The fox nudged her head against the cub’s forehead then brought her tail around and flicked it in front of her face.  The cub grabbed for her tail, but the fox moved it out of her way.  The human got a fierce look on her tiny face, lips pressed together, all of her attention on the fox’s tail, and when the fox passed it in front of her face again, she grabbed it!  Then she grinned and buried her face in the even softer fur of the fox’s tail.  As she did so, the fox nudged her nose just at the edge of her jaw._

The memory shifted.

_The human cub curled up against the fox’s stomach and lay her head in her fur.  The fox began to lick the fur on top of the cub’s head.  As she did so, the cub curled one hand in the fox’s fur.  Her breathing slowed in time with the rumbling deep in the back of the fox’s throat.  When she was done cleaning her, the fox lay her head on her front paws, circling the human cub so that her tail touched the tip of her nose.  Her ears remained up as she relaxed, her eyes closing as she dozed with the small cub._

Luisa pulled back out of the memories but not out of her fox’s knowledge.

“Show me my mother,” she said, voice hushed.  “Show me the last time.”

_The fox sniffed the ground in front of her, tail brushing the grass behind her.  She’d been doing this for years now, masking it as a patrol the same way the person before her had, and when she found a body, she returned to form and reported it.  She could stay human while she searched, but she liked it better this way.  Human paws weren’t made for digging the same way that little fox paws were._

_Today, someone had called in with a tip.  They’d left it behind with one of the others in the station, but they’d handed it off to her to check on her patrol.  She’d gained a reputation for finding bodies the same way her predecessor had.  Certainly no one dreamed both of those were due to her alone._

_So far, there had been nothing different.  The fox walked this area often, and the only thing she could smell was—_

_No.  She_ knew _that smell._

_Her nose twitched once, twice, and she lifted her head up, sniffing the air before running forward.  The dark-haired woman wasn’t buried when she found her, but her eyes were already cloudy.  She reached out one blood-stained hand as the fox crept slowly toward her, eying the bloody knife in her hand.  “It’s still fresh,” the woman said, coughing.  “I made sure not to harm it.”_

_“I told you I did not want this.”_

_“But I did.”  The woman shivered and dropped the knife before gesturing feebly for the fox to come closer.  “Please, finish this for me.”_

_The fox crept closer, and the woman ran her blood-stained hands through her fur.  “Your cub will not want this.”_

_“Luisa,” the woman whispered.  Her eyes grew bright for a brief moment, then they became cloudy again.  “She will be…fine.  You will take care of her for me.”_

_“I cannot be you.”_

_“You can be you.”  The woman leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the fox’s.  “You can be_ you _.”_

_“I do not want this.”_

_“It will be less painful for me than sitting here and waiting for it to end.  Please.”  The woman brushed her hand through the fox’s fur again.  “Please.”_

_The fox licked at the tears on the woman’s cheek.  “They will think I killed you.”_

_“They will think a fox killed me.  They will not know it is you.”_

_The fox’s ears cocked as she heard a loud banging in the distance.  Her head turned, ears flat.  “Someone is here.  Someone is coming.”_

_“Hurry!” the woman said, tightening her hand in the fox’s fur.  “They won’t be able to help me like you will.”_

Luisa knew what happened next.  She’d already seen it.  She closed her eyes, and the memory moved forward without her paying attention.  When she opened them again, the memory had continued on without her, and the last thing she saw was the little fox watching her with blue bright eyes and her own frightened gaze before running away.

When she slept that night and was returned to the fox’s den, still against her will and despite the fox’s comment that she was no longer needed, Luisa found the woman curled up in her bed as she had been when she’d dreamed her years earlier, now with her scarred arm held close to her chest, still bound even though that was no longer necessary.  Her eyes were closed.  Without thought, Luisa got into bed next to her.  The woman froze at her touch, remaining very still as Luisa curled up against her and lay her head on her chest.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Luisa said, finally, and when she looked up, she saw that the woman’s eyes had opened and that she was watching her with bright blue eyes.

“Why are you here?”

“I don’t know.”  Luisa took the woman’s arm and carefully moved it to wrap around her.  “I don’t have a choice.”

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”  Luisa pulled the blankets tighter around them.

“Why?”

Luisa sighed.  “Because I’m here and you’re warm and I need  _someone_ , so you will have to do.”  But when she looked up again, it was with a smile, and she leaned up to press a kiss to the woman’s cheek.  “Thank you.”

“For what?” the woman asked, her voice cautious.

“For protecting me.  For coming to help me when I needed it.”

“I have already been paid for that.”

“Twice, if my calculations are correct,” Luisa said, burrowing against the woman’s chest.

The woman ran her fingers along Luisa’s spine.  “Once for your general protection and once for information that you needed.  Those are two different exchanges.”

“Mmhm.”  Luisa shivered.  “Does everything have to be an exchange for you?”

“No.”

“Then don’t make this an exchange.”

“You don’t like me.”

“I changed my mind once.  I can be convinced to change my mind again.”  Luisa curled closer, wrapping her arms around the other woman.  “Just let me stay for a while.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No.”

“Then stop worrying.  I’m your favorite memory, and I came back.  Take it for what it is.”

The woman nodded, and she brushed a hand through Luisa’s hair.  Then she kissed her forehead, just as gentle as she always had.  “I don’t  _have_  a favorite memory.”

“You have  _many_.”  Luisa glared upwards.  “I’m one of them.”

“You are.”

Luisa moved closer.  “How much longer until you change?”

“Three days.”

Luisa nodded, burrowing her head in the woman’s chest.  “Will you come see me?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes.”  Luisa clung to the woman.  “I want to see you.  I want to be there.”  She paused before saying, “If I go back to my father’s mansion, will you meet me there?  Then, if something goes wrong—”

“Nothing will go wrong.”

“You don’t even know what’s supposed to happen.”

“I know nothing will go wrong.”

“But if it does, I’ll have access to anything I might need to help you.  There isn’t enough here, and there’s even less at my little hovel.  I would feel more prepared there.”

“You’ve been gone for years,” the woman said, “and you really want to go back?”

“No.  But I want to meet you there.”

“Three days.”

“As soon as I can get there.”  Luisa looked up, eyes wide.  “You’ll know when I get there, won’t you?”

“I always know where you are.”

Luisa’s eyes narrowed.  “That’s a little creepy.”

“Your mother paid me with her heart to protect you.  I have to know where you are.”

“Still creepy.”

“Would you rather I didn’t?”

“No.”

“Then it’s not that creepy, is it?”

“I guess not.”  Luisa burrowed into the woman’s chest again.  “Can you purr in this form?”

“Can you?”

“No.”

“I’m just as human as you are.”

“Oh.”

The woman leaned down to kiss Luisa’s forehead again, and as she did, a deep rumble started in the center of her chest, just where Luisa’s head rested.  “Sleep.  I will see you again when you arrive.”

Luisa closed her eyes with a smile, and when she woke again, she was back in her room in the far away country.  It didn’t take long to gather the things she needed to return, and since she did not know how long she would be gone, she left payment to cover what would be needed at her hovel and left note at her place of healing with intent to return.  Then she left, as quickly as she could, to make her way back to her father’s mansion.  It took longer than she wanted, even though the trip was as long as it had been before.  Maybe it was just that she wanted more to be back, to be in that one spot, than she had when she had left or the first time she had returned.  Now, she felt almost desperate, although she could not exactly say why.

There was nothing new about her father’s mansion.  It stood just as empty as it had been when she left, perhaps even more so.  Scavengers had broken in and stolen much of the furniture, but somehow Luisa’s room, her father’s room, and the few things they had left of her mother were untouched.  She was certain she knew who to thank for that, although she was equally certain the fox would want no payment for those services.

Luisa left what little she’d brought back with her in her room then left again, going through the nearby town to find food and ingredients for food.  She listened to the talk of the townspeople as she shopped, a few of whom were surprised to see her again so many years later.  They mentioned a blonde policewoman who had really begun to address the problem of the fox people living in their town, making sure to arrest and hold accountable those foxes who were murdering their victims but also working with those who would help her.  The police now had a team of foxes on call, individuals who would patrol with their human partners to address the town murders.  It seemed to be helping.  Luisa smiled at the thought and wondered if the townspeople knew that every heart they found went as payment to the fox team.  She felt it was better to keep that to herself.

When she returned to the mansion with baskets and bags full to overflowing with food, the redheaded woman was waiting for her.  Luisa stood still for a few moments.  Even seeing her in her dreams and knowing it was her felt different than truly seeing her again.  The woman had her hands clasped together in front of her, head lowered, and Luisa noted the new scar in the shape of a star on her upper right arm.

“Come help me,” Luisa said, raising her arms full of baskets and bags.

“What will you pay me?” the woman asked, eyes lifting with the foxlike grin that exposed her pointed teeth.

Luisa’s eyes widened until she saw the woman’s expression, then she laughed.  “Help me, or you don’t get any food.”

The woman took a few of the bags, frowning.  “That’s not a payment.  That’s a punishment.”

“Same thing.”  Luisa leaned forward to brush her cheek against the woman’s.  Then she stepped back with an impish grin.  “If you collect the petals, I’ll even make tea.”

It had taken two days and nights to return from the far away country to the one of her birth.  This was the third day, and the hours were counting down to the fox’s change.  Luisa had no idea what time it was when she’d learned her fox’s secret, and so she had no idea when the change would occur.  Perhaps it already had.  Perhaps she simply hadn’t noticed.  Perhaps she couldn’t.  She just didn’t know.

After everything was placed in the kitchen, the woman left to gather petals while Luisa put away everything she had gotten.  Once that was done, she set about making a small but hardy dish.  Stew with wild rabbit meat, hard biscuits with lavender, and another set of biscuits meant to be much fluffier and softer, to eat after dinner with a sprinkling of honey.  The woman returned just as the tea kettle began to scream with heat, and after rinsing the petals off, Luisa dropped them into the water and left them to set.

“When will you change?” Luisa asked as she continued to cook.  “Is it soon?”

“At midnight.”  The woman leaned against one of the counters, swiping an apple while she was waiting.  “It isn’t exact.  You may have learned about me at any time, but the change always happens at midnight, when one night turns into the next day.”

“Is there anything I need to know?”

The woman held the apple in her hand, tapped her nail along it, and refused to look up.  “I need you to keep my knowledge.  The change takes time, and when everything is done, my knowledge will dissolve and become one with me.  I’m afraid of what may happen if I have it during the change, and this seems safest to me.”

“How do I remove it to return to you?”

“Return it to me the same way I gave it to you.  There is no other way, short of beheading.”  The woman grinned again, then, and looked up with a mischievous glint in her blue bright eyes.

The meal passed as one would expect a meal to pass.  They spoke, but of nothing of importance, and they ate.  The food was warm and good.  The hard biscuits went well with the stew, and the fluffier biscuits with their honey felt almost like the first time they met, but better.  It had been a long time.

“You were wrong,” Luisa said finally, and she glanced up.  “Your knowledge was not too much for me to bear.”

“You say that now, but you would have nothing to do with me for years.  That you overcame it speaks wonders.”

“But I did,” Luisa repeated.  “Overcome it.”

“Yes.”  The woman smiled.

“You misjudged me.”

“I’m a fox,” the woman said, her voice soft.  “It is wise of me to assume the worst.  More often than not, that is what happens.”

“But not this time.”

“Not yet.”

When they were done eating, they sat and talked, but the conversation felt worn and tired before it even began.  Luisa tried to update the woman on her life, but she already knew everything that Luisa had been doing.  She asked after the woman’s shoulder wound only to find that it had been healing just as well as she thought it was.  The woman asked after her heart, and Luisa kept the occasional hollow ache to herself.  She said everything was fine because, for the most part, it was and because she wanted it to be.

As the time grew closer to midnight, they moved to Luisa’s bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed.  The woman began to shiver, and when Luisa asked her what was wrong, the woman said there was nothing, only fear.  Luisa leaned the woman’s head against her chest and began to brush her fingers through her red hair.  She didn’t tell her she would be okay because she didn’t know what  _okay_  would entail.  So she offered what comfort she could.

They’d curled up together by the time it was almost midnight.  Luisa’s arm was wrapped around the woman’s waist, and the woman still had her head resting against Luisa’s chest.  They didn’t say anything because they couldn’t, each of them counting down the minutes, the seconds, to the change.

And yet, neither of them expected it when it finally began.

The clock downstairs struck midnight, giving off its great booming chimes that echoed throughout the whole hollow mansion.  Immediately, the woman began to shiver again.  This time she couldn’t control it, and the shivers grew worse, so bad that the entire bed began to shake.  Luisa jumped out of the bed!  The woman let out a low, growling moan.  The shivers started to slow, but as they did, Luisa could see that the woman had grown as pale as she’d been when her shoulder was infected and that she was covered with a thin sheen of sweat.  Luisa moved forward, gently placing the back of her hand on the woman’s forehead.

“Don’t touch me,” the woman growled, her voice so low and gravely that she might as well have been baring her little pointed teeth.  Her eyes looked up to meet Luisa’s, and they were both cloudy and sharply dark all at once.

“What’s happening?” Luisa asked, her voice nothing more than a whisper.

“I don’t know.”

“Is it supposed to be like this?”

“ _I don’t know._ ”  The woman’s face contorted in pain.  “It feels like my skin is being burned off.  It’s hard to breathe.”

“Let me help you!”

“How?” the woman asked, and her voice was a whine.  “You don’t know what’s wrong!  How could you  _possibly_  help?”

“You’re hurting!”  Luisa stepped forward again, her hand out.  “Let me at least—”

“ _No._ ”  The woman lifted her gaze to meet Luisa’s again.  Then she closed her eyes, her teeth gritting together, jaw clenching so tight it gave off a rumbling sound.  “Leave me.”

Luisa didn’t move at first, unsure of what she’d heard.  “What?”

“ _Leave me!”_

The woman’s voice was a great boom like a gunshot, and Luisa jumped!  She tried to step forward instead, but the woman let out another deep growl.  So Luisa obeyed.  She paused at the door to the room and looked back, but by then the woman had curled into a tight little ball, shaking and shivering, arms wrapped so tightly around her chest as though to hold herself together.  Luisa shut the door behind her and went to her father’s room to wait.

She waited and she waited and nothing changed.  She heard soft yipping noises coming from her room near the beginning, but those soon died out.  She twisted her hands together and sat on the edge of her father’s bed, unable to sleep.  When the sun began to peek through his window, she left his room.  She returned to her bedroom and knocked once, expecting to hear the woman yell at her to leave again or tell her to come in, but there was no response.  Maybe she was asleep.  After everything, she must have been exhausted.

Luisa opened the door to find the woman lying still on her bed.  At first, she didn’t say anything, and when she moved closer, she noticed how pale she still was, how little she seemed to be moving, how cloudy and hollow her open eyes appeared.

Luisa was a healer of people.  She knew what signs to check.

The woman was dead.

At first, Luisa didn’t know how to react.  She could feel the tears welling in her eyes, but now there was no one to wipe them away, and she found she didn’t like that.  It was easier to try to keep busy, to find some way to fix this.  The fox was a magical creature.  The  _woman_  was a magical creature.  Magical creatures needed magical healing, just like magical wounds did.  That had to be it.  Luisa glanced up from the woman’s body and noticed that there was a tunnel still open beneath the rose bush that stood just outside her window.  Then she understood.

Luisa lifted the woman gently from her bed and carried her downstairs, outside, to the tunnel.  The woman was not as heavy as Luisa thought, lighter than other people she’d moved over the course of her job for the past few years.  Once they got to the tunnel, Luisa carried the woman as carefully as she could down into her den.  Then she placed her on her bed, covering her with blankets and laying her against one of her pillows.

There was no change.

Luisa sat on the little stool for a while, watching the woman for any sign of  _something_ , but found that doing so only made her heart ache.  So she brushed strands of the woman’s hair out of her face and left the den, climbing out of the tunnel without looking back.  When the woman was better, she would return.  That was how this worked.  That was how magical transformations worked in every fairy tale she’d ever read.

She returned to the kitchen.  She made herself food, and she made herself eat.  What was left of the rose petal tea was cold and tepid.  It tasted horrid.  So she went outside to collect more petals.

The tunnel was gone.

Oh.

_No._

It was only then that Luisa let herself feel the hollowness in her chest.  This was not the way things were supposed to go.  The tunnel was supposed to remain open.  The woman was supposed to return to her, alive.  She wasn’t supposed to be—

Luisa collapsed at the edge of the rose bush.  By now, she could feel the tears falling, and she was having trouble breathing through the hollow ache in her chest.  She began to dig into the ground beneath the rose bush, trying desperately, with all her might, to bring the tunnel back.  At least then, if the woman was dead, if she was truly gone, she could be given a proper burial.  Luisa could make sure that her heart was somewhere no other fox could ever touch it.  There were a thousand hearts lying in that tunnel – the ones the fox had eaten and the one belonging to the fox herself.

It was while she was digging, nails breaking with the dirt crammed beneath them, that a hand touched her shoulder.

Luisa looked up, angry, only to see someone who looked identical to the woman her fox became staring down at her.  “Who are you?”

“I don’t know,” the woman said, blue eyes searching Luisa’s face.  “Are you okay?”

“No.”  Luisa shook her head and stood, not taking time to brush the dirt from her knees or her hands.  She started back to her father’s mansion, ignoring what she was certain was another fox, one who had eaten the heart of the one she’d left.  “Are you going to eat me, too?”

“No.  Why would I do that?”

Luisa didn’t feel the need to explain.  “Why are you here?”

“I don’t know,” the woman said again.  “I woke up and I didn’t know who I was but I knew I needed to come here.  I needed to see someone here.”

As the woman spoke, Luisa turned to face her.  The woman faced away from her, head lowered, glancing at the hands she had clasped in front of her, fingers fidgeting against each other, unable to be still.  And Luisa noticed, seeing the sheer fabric against the woman’s back, that there was no tattoo there, only a spattering of freckles against the pale skin beneath it.  “Who did you need to see?”

“I don’t know,” the woman said a third time.  She turned and faced Luisa.  “I was hoping it was you.  I didn’t see anyone else in the house, and—”

Luisa didn’t wait any longer.  She moved toward the woman and kissed her and  _hoped_  this was the right action.  The fox’s knowledge passed slowly from her to the other woman, and as soon as it was gone from between her lips, she stepped back.  Her eyes searched the other woman’s, and when there was no change, she began to blush.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to surprise you.  I didn’t—”

Then the woman moved forward and brushed her nose gently against Luisa’s before meeting her lips with another, gentler kiss.  Warmth flooded beneath Luisa’s skin, and as her hand lifted to push through the woman’s red curls, she could feel a tingling in her fingertips, almost like lightning.

“You did right,” the woman said, breathless, as the kiss broke and her eyes met Luisa’s.  “You did  _right_.”

“I did?” Luisa asked, voice weak.

“You did.”  The woman brushed a hand through Luisa’s hair.  Then she nudged the edge of Luisa’s jaw, gentle, her nose no longer cold.

“You were dead.”

“I  _looked_  dead.”

“I’m a healer.  I know what dead is.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“What happened?” Luisa asked, curving one hand along the woman’s face.  “Where did you go?”

“I don’t know.”  The woman smiled.  “I know how that sounds, but I was telling the truth.  I woke up and needed to come here.  I don’t know why I was where I was or how I got there.  I couldn’t even tell you where  _there_  was.  But I’m here now.  I’m here, and I’m human, and—”

Luisa kissed her again, and the woman made a muffled sound against her lips.  “Hush,” she said, finally, when they parted.  “You’re here, and you’re  _you_ , and that’s all that matters.”  She stepped back and took the woman’s hand, interlacing their fingers together.  “What do I call you now?” she asked, squeezing her hand.  “I can’t just call you  _fox_.”

“What do you want to call me?”

Luisa thought about it for a moment then grinned.  “Rose,” she said, “for the tea you always wanted me to make, for the bushes under which I always saw you, for the petals I always had to pick.”

“I picked them yesterday.”

“ _Shush._ ”

Luisa kissed her again, and for once, the world felt wonderful and full of hope and brightness.  She grinned and brushed her nose against Rose’s, and her heart never felt hollow again.

This is not to say there were not obstacles, as there are in every relationship.  But they faced them together, and they overcame them together, and despite all of this, or perhaps because of it, they lived happily ever after.

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot express to you, dear reader, how much this particular fic means to me. I'd been brainstorming it but eventually started it at a time when I...really wanted a fairy tale (and really wanted to post something because I was in a really bad spot).
> 
> I ended up writing this fic over a three week period of time, all in one go, and while some things changed in that writing, from the third chapter on, I had a fairly concrete idea of what was going to happen.
> 
> I hope that this final chapter - and that this story as a whole - has lived up to everything y'all have wanted from it. And! Look forward to continuing adventures with (some of) these characters in this verse sometime in August (hopefully), including at least one scene I'd originally planned to include here but that didn't quite work.
> 
> Thanks for sticking in for the ride! And please comment and let me know what you think. ^^


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